Genesis 32:22-32
That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female servants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. 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. Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”
But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
The man asked him, “What is your name?”
“Jacob,” he answered.
Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”
Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.”
But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there.
So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”
The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip. 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.
Jacob came into the world holding on tight and it looks like that quality stayed with him. As we’ve read through his story far too quickly, it doesn’t escape notice that when he takes hold of something, it’s with white-knuckled tenacity. Of all the things we might question about Jacob, his follow-through can never be one of them.
There’s a holy boldness to this story in so many ways, not the least of which involves Jacob’s demand, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” I’ll admit, that is not my first reaction when I’m struggling. It’s not in my first ten reactions or the ten after that. I do a lot of striving to fix it, solve it, or to “win.” I may reach out to other people for their thoughts and insight, but honestly, I usually want them to help me fix it, solve it, or “win.” If none of that works out, I start to give up. Not in a spiritually healthy way, where I’m willingly submitting to whatever God is doing, but in a far more desperate and probably pathetic way. Eventually, the regret sets in. I don’t share all this from some self-deprecating place, I share it because I realize I can learn something from Jacob here. I can learn something about tenacity and grit, but I can also learn something about those times when I wrestle with myself, with others, with my place in the world, with God. I’m not the only one to do it. And it’s ok to lean into the wrestling.
Our final thought is a simple one. Wrestling with ourselves and with God will change us. It leaves a lasting mark on us, in us. It changes how we walk. It changes how we think. It changes how we see ourselves. It changes us. May you be changed through and through.
Reflect:
On the passage. Skim over it again. Note anything that resonates deeply. Note anything that you resist.
Journal:
On your own history of wrestling. Spiritual wrestling, relational wrestling, theological wrestling, emotional wrestling, physical wrestling, whatever the case may be. Choose an experience when you wrestled with God, with others, with yourself. How did God change you?
Pray:
For further change and transformation. Pray authentically and wrestle in those prayers. It is in Jacob’s wrestling that God changes his name. God has always known him as Israel, it is in the moment of the struggle that Jacob is able to see and know himself in the same way. Pray for that in your own wrestling. Seek that authenticity and don’t give up until you are blessed.