Wrestling with God

In Genesis 32 we see Jacob preparing to meet his brother Esau. He sent messengers ahead who return telling him that Esau is coming with 400 men. Jacob is greatly afraid and distressed (vs7) and speaks to God for deliverance because he fears Esau’s attack upon him and his family (vs11).

His prayer is clear ‘deliver me’ (vs11), his attitude is humble ‘I am not worthy’ (vs10), and his foundation is God’s promise ‘to do him good’ in returning (vs9, vs12).

Jacob’s distress comes in obedience to God’s command. He has left Laban (Gen 31) and set up a pillar between them so that he cannot go back. Free of Laban yet now he cannot move forward for fear of Esau. He is distressed yet he remembers God’s word to him saying ‘Return to your country and to your kindred, that I may do you good’ (vs9). This is the only thing he can stand upon.

The story continues with Jacob dividing the camp into two, sending gifts ahead of him to appease Esau, and sending his family and possessions across the Jabbok. Jacob though stands alone not crossing with everyone (vs23-24). He cannot go back yet he cannot go forward to meet Esau. There is conflict within him and he stays alone in the dark.

But in truth Jacob is not alone. In vs1-2 there were a camp of angels with him. In vs9 he speaks to God and God comes (perhaps as one of the angels) and wrestles with him until daybreak (vs24). He is striving with God and will not let God go until he blesses him (vs26). And he is blessed. Jacob comes away from this a changed man; he has a new name ‘Israel’ and a limp.

This is what I want us to think about today; in times of great conflict and distress the need to wrestle with God in prayer. Notice that it continues until daybreak, that is, until the darkness turned to light. Psalm 30:5 tells us ‘…weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.’ In a crisis the need to wrestle with God in prayer continues. It is never a one and done thing. Jacob is persistent even in his great weakness. He will not let God go until He blesses him. There have been two times in my life when I had prayed in this way and both were in times of crisis. As the crisis continued I could not but pray and increasingly prayer became exactly that which I desired to do.

Yet we cannot imagine that the goal of prayer is to be strengthened; that is, thinking prayer is about making ourselves strong. In this story it is exactly the opposite. Jacob wrestles with God and is made weaker. God touches his hip so that now Jacob is walking with a limp. He leaves his encounter with God a weakened man and goes forth to meet Esau limping. Now, try as he may, he can no longer run away. In this way he is now truly dependent upon God. This is the purpose of prayer in a crisis, to be led to become dependent on God in weakness. The limp is by God’s hand.

We should not fear how God breaks us in crisis and prayer. A couple of months before I came to Japan my pastor in Australia told me (a young 19yr old!) ‘never trust a man without a limp’. I didn’t understand what he meant then. A couple of months later I was in Japan and went through a very painful experience. It broke me. I called my pastor from Japan and he said ‘remember when I said never to trust a man without a limp. Well now you have a limp’. I’ve walked with the pain of that experience for 17 years in Japan and it has changed me, in God’s grace, in ways I never could. I am thankful for the limp. In great weakness and pain Jacob will not let God go. There he becomes ‘Israel’.

But we must not forget something here. In order for Jacob to wrestle with God first God must make himself weak. God in his majesty is beyond us. God clothes himself in weakness so that Jacob can strive with Him. And is not this how God comes to us all? Jesus Christ clothed himself with the weakness of humanity, he became a man to come to us, to suffer for us, to die, and in this way bring us to God. Because He has come to us in great weakness we may now come to Him in our great weakness.

Blessings.