Wrestling with God

Wrestling with God

  

 If you got in a wrestling match with God

who would win?

Read about the man who wrestled with God

and overcame God.

When Jacob returns to his homeland

and hears that his brother Esau

is coming out to meet him with 400 men,

Jacob becomes terrified.

Have you ever got a report and thought the worst?

Jacob had escaped being killed by his brother once before.

This is like having cancer

and going into remission then finding another lump.

Jacob can’t run;

because even if he could,

Esau was a great hunter.

But wait a minute Jacob remembers where he is at.

Earlier in verse 1 he meets angels of God

and he calls this place away from home,

“The Camp of God”

God was camping out with Jacob.

For you and I,

it could be a hospital

or broken down in the middle of nowhere.

Anywhere, where fear and distress grips us.

 When Jacob remembers where he is at,

he prays.

He reminds God of all the blessings

God had given him to fulfill the promise God had made to him.

Jacob logically says,

God, you didn’t start a good work in me to let it end this way.

After Jacob hides all of his family

and belongings outside the camp,

he returns alone that night.

Alone, uncertain of his fate, in the camp of God.

But he is not alone, God is there;

Jacob does the unthinkable.

Jacob wrestles with God.

Jacob has God in a headlock and won’t let go!

It is not that Jacob wants to hurt God

it’s that Jacob knows his only hope is God.

To let go of God is to let go of life itself.

Jacob won’t let go of God until God blesses him.

Jacob struggled with men and overcame.

Jacob struggled with God and he overcame.

Jacob was determined not to let anything keep him

from getting the best God had for him.

How close have you got to wrapping your arms

around God until He gave you His best?

How long are you willing to hang onto God?

Scripture Reading

Genesis 32 NIV

32:1 Jacob also went on his way, and the angels of God met him.

2 When Jacob saw them, he said, "This is the camp of God!"

So he named that place Mahanaim.  

3 Jacob sent messengers ahead of him to his brother Esau in the land of Seir,

the country of Edom.

4 He instructed them: "This is what you are to say to my master Esau:

'Your servant Jacob says, I have been staying with Laban

and have remained there till now.

5 I have cattle and donkeys, sheep and goats, menservants and maidservants.

Now I am sending this message to my lord, that I may find favor in your eyes.'"

6 When the messengers returned to Jacob, they said,

"We went to your brother Esau, and now he is coming to meet you,

and four hundred men are with him."

7 In great fear and distress Jacob divided the people who were with him into two groups, and the flocks and herds and camels as well.

8 He thought, "If Esau comes and attacks one group, the group that is left may escape."

9 Then Jacob prayed, "O God of my father Abraham, God of my father Isaac, O LORD, who said to me, 'Go back to your country and your relatives,

and I will make you prosper,'

10 I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness you have shown your servant.

I had only my staff when I crossed this Jordan, but now I have become two groups.

11 Save me, I pray, from the hand of my brother Esau,

for I am afraid he will come and attack me, and also the mothers with their children.

12 But you have said, 'I will surely make you prosper

and will make your descendants like the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted.'"

13 He spent the night there,

and from what he had with him he selected a gift for his brother Esau:

14 two hundred female goats and twenty male goats, two hundred ewes and twenty rams, 15 thirty female camels with their young, forty cows and ten bulls,

and twenty female donkeys and ten male donkeys.

16 He put them in the care of his servants, each herd by itself, and said to his servants, "Go ahead of me, and keep some space between the herds."

17 He instructed the one in the lead: "When my brother Esau meets you and asks,

'To whom do you belong, and where are you going, and who owns all these animals in front of you?' 18 then you are to say, 'They belong to your servant Jacob.

They are a gift sent to my lord Esau, and he is coming behind us.'"

19 He also instructed the second, the third and all the others who followed the herds: "You are to say the same thing to Esau when you meet him.

20 And be sure to say, 'Your servant Jacob is coming behind us.'"

For he thought, "I will pacify him with these gifts I am sending on ahead;

later, when I see him, perhaps he will receive me."

21 So Jacob's gifts went on ahead of him, but he himself spent the night in the camp.

22 That night Jacob got up and took his two wives,

his two maidservants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok.

23 After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions.

24 So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak.

25 When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man.

26 Then the man said, "Let me go, for it is daybreak."

But Jacob replied, "I will not let you go unless you bless me."

27 The man asked him, "What is your name?"

"Jacob," he answered.

28 Then the man said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel,

because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome."

29 Jacob said, "Please tell me your name."

But he replied, "Why do you ask my name?" Then he blessed him there.

30 So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying,

"It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared."

31 The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip.

32 Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the tendon attached to the socket of the hip, because the socket of Jacob's hip was touched near the tendon.