wrestling is exhausting - a study on Jacob in Genesis
Acorns crunch under my feet.
American flag waving in the distance.
Crisp winter air fills my lungs.
This season is supposed to be light, yet my heart is heavy.
Abrupt stop. My feet are tripping over a crack I should've seen. Okay, let's keep going. And this raggedy twig in my way, slightly scraping my face!
Ouch… branches brushing my skin could be more normal for me than I'd care to admit.
A mind that's wandering… my feet may be here but my brain is usually in a different world.
Who knows what I'm thinking?
Maybe it's about a conversation I had the previous day or about the fact that I'm back in my hometown, a place that used to feel familiar yet now feels like a distant memory.
Wrestling with who I was when I was 17 and who I am now in this new reality.
Friction. Irritation. Wrestling with the old me and who God is calling me to be. Feeling the tugs of the constant questions or a breach of other's expectations.
Wrestling is exhausting. Wrestling is hard. At times you can barely breathe because you're getting choked out…or, maybe you're the one taking someone else's breath as you strain for your own. Gasping for air while your eyes gaze into one another's as your limbs flail against each other.
If you think about it… you're under the control of someone else's hands.
Isn't that what life can feel like sometimes?
You're wrestling with their perspective versus your perception. The way they hurt you and the way you hurt them. Your exhaling grows faint as you struggle because of the pain. The pain of the moment and the pain of the past. Both with a relentless grasp on your identity.
Who am I and who will I be when it feels like the wrestling has taken the best out of me?
When my air has been stolen and my limbs are broken?
When I'm unable to move past the moment?
The Bible says that Jacob wrestled with God all night.
But what if he was wrestling within himself for the last 20 years?
What if he wrestled with defeat and shame long before he wrestled with God face to face?
What's wild about Genesis 32 is it is not the first time we see Jacob wrestling in the text. In fact, the first time we see him wrestling is in Genesis 25:22 "The babies jostled each other within her,..." Other translations read that they "struggled within her."
Jacob was wrestling from the womb, yo!
This would be the beginning of their struggling history where contempt and hatred were the fabric of Jacob and Esau's relationship.
How broken could their relationship have been? Well….
Eventually Jacob would go on to steal Esau's birthright as the first-born son.
Jacob deceived their father Isaac into giving him his brother's blessing which in modern terms would be like stealing an inheritance.
In Genesis 27:41 it says that Esau held a grudge against Jacob and chased after him to murder him.
Jacob had to run away from his family and the life he knew to live with Laban, his mom's brother.
He lived and worked for Laban, his uncle, for 20 years, all while being cheated by him for his wages and his wife.. or wives I should say! (hello!)
Could you imagine the internal baggage that weighed on him from that?
Fast forward to Genesis 32:24-31 -
"Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he could not defeat him, he struck Jacob’s hip socket as they wrestled and dislocated his hip. Then he said to Jacob, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.
“What is your name?” the man asked.“Jacob,” he replied.
“Your name will no longer be Jacob,” he said. “It will be Israel because you have struggled with God and with men and have prevailed.”
Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.”
But he answered, “Why do you ask my name?” And he blessed him there.
Jacob then named the place Peniel, “For I have seen God face to face,” he said, “yet my life has been spared.” The sun shone on him as he passed by Penuel—limping because of his hip..."
This moment is pivotal. Jacob is preparing to meet Esau after 20 years of struggling with life, their relationship, his own issues, and trying to process the trauma that is a result of his own actions and the family he was born into.
And this is the place where God meets him. The culmination of 20 years from the day Esau declared he would kill Jacob because of the grief he brought into his life.
So, Jacob prepares to meet Esau. But God meets with Jacob first.
Isn't that just like Jesus? To meet us at the right time in the place of our distress? (Genesis 32:7)
It's what He does.
Even though Jacob didn't know God's name, he blessed him.
Even though Jacob was raised in a broken home filled with lies, deceit, and disobedience, God blessed him.
Even though Jacob deceived and cheated others, God blessed him.
He even blessed Jacob as he wrestled with Him.
God doesn't bless us because of who we are, he blesses us because of who He is.
I believe people are reading this who… you don't even know God's name. You don't even know who He is yet you've still wrestled with the idea of who he could be in your life.
You think your upbringing, your past, your preconceived notions, your family history disqualifies you from a life that is rich with blessing and a sense of God's presence.
Jacob asks God his name… he wants to know God.
How do I know? Because usually, when you ask someone's name, it's an introduction to getting to know them. He saw God face to face yet he didn't know him.
Maybe you don't know God but you've seen him face to face.
You've seen Him in the way he's brought healing to your family or the way things have just "worked out" for you.
You've seen Him in the way the waves shift and change with the tides or the way the sun sets and rises.
You've seen Him in the cracks of the mountains or the wonder of a baby being born.
You've seen Him in the way our hearts beat and our bodies maintain homeostasis as we sit here with ease.
He's touched your heart in ways you haven't been able to speak about.
Thoughts of Him have filled your mind but you're hesitant to talk about it because you know people around you wouldn't understand.
You've wondered about Him..is this real or am I making it up?
Don’t let the doubt deceive you. God has shown up and…
God sees you. He has touched your heart in significant ways.
There's no denying it any longer, His love has clearly met your mind.
As the skies have met your eyes and the waves have caused you to wonder, you are simply blessed by the way His voice has been uncovered.
Continue to wrestle with your beliefs about Him and watch as prevailing takes place.
Bring the struggles you face internally and externally to the God who sees.
He hears your prayers. He bottles your tears. (Psalm 56:8)
see the rest of this post here, at pt. 2.