There he is alone, late into the night, walking a few steps, then nervously stopping to look over his shoulders for fear that he hears the sound of feet stepping on leaves a few yards away. His heart beats faster while his mind is racing. When he’s finally convinced that he must have just been hearing things, he moves forward only to stop and repeat this process several more times. He’s completely isolated himself away from everyone only to be haunted by his past decisions, which have now led to a major crisis that threatens his entire family. His mind is already wrestling with feelings of guilt and shame, yet at the same time reaches out in prayer to the God who appeared to him at Bethel and gave him the covenant promise. Tossing between fear and faith, regret and repentance, Jacob feels stuck in a personal crisis of his own making.
Then our eyes turn from Jacob to the mysterious silhouette of what looks like a man walking in Jacob's direction. And as though in direct answer to Jacob’s prayer, He comes with a countenance that reveals kindness and reassurance, therefore when He finally gets close to Jacob He stretches forth His hand to place it on his shoulder as one would when greeting a friend. However, when Jacob hears the Man’s footsteps right behind him and feels the touch of His hand upon his shoulder, his worst fears are realized in that moment and he knows he’s not alone. Crushed with guilt for how he’d wronged his brother Esau and knowing that he was on his way to him with 400 armed men, Jacob is immediately triggered into seeing this greeting as a threat to his life. He believes this could be Esau who’s come to get his revenge. So he quickly turns to grab the strong hand that rested upon his shoulder and punches the Man in the stomach. Upon receiving the blow and realizing that Jacob, out of fear, was fighting for his life, the Man decides to accomplish the purpose of His visit by meeting Jacob where he was. So He grabs Jacob’s left leg and pulls, causing him to fall to the ground. Then Jacob gets up off the ground and rushes towards the Man, tackling Him to the ground. And so the two of them struggled together for 30 minutes, then an hour, then 2 hours and on into the night. As Jacob wrestles with this Man, he can’t help but notice that he doesn’t quite recognize who He is. And though tired, bruised and scraped, Jacob continues to summon up all the strength he has to survive this encounter. He wonders if this isn’t Esau, then could it be one of his men, an enemy of some sort, the Enemy or is it one sent by God to punish him for his past sin. Now, while in the grip of Jacob’s headlock, the Man saw that the day was beginning to break, and He realized that He had allowed Jacob to wrestle with Him for long enough. And with Jacob showing no signs of letting up, the Man decides to bring the wrestling match to an end in order for Him to do for Jacob what He originally intended to do. In the midst of their struggle, He reaches His hand over to Jacob’s hip, and as if with the flash of light from an electric bolt, He pulls the socket of Jacob’s hip out of joint. Jacob lets out a loud cry as pain surges through his body. Yet also in that moment he realizes that he’s not been fighting a mere man. His mind flashes back to the angels of God that met him in Mahanaim on his way back to his father’s land and concludes this must be one of these angels, therefore, Jacob goes from fighting Him with all of his might to clinging to Him with all of his might.
Maybe you too have found yourself wrestling with God in the midst of a personal crisis. And you were so triggered and fearful, or maybe so full of feelings of guilt and shame, that it was hard for you to discern if it was God or the Enemy intervening into your situation. It’s these type of situations that can leave you asking the probing question: What is God doing when His intervention into your personal crisis looks like hurt and not help? Have you ever been there? If you have, then let’s dive into Genesis 32 together and see what possible answers the Holy Spirit has for us. We pick up the story in verse 26, which says…
Stay tuned for Part Two…
CJ COUSINS, Speaker/Author
Follower of Jesus, Husband, Father, Associate Pastor for Younger Generations at Vienna SDA Church and Speaker/Author for Living For Him. CJ’s passion is to live, preach & teach the Good News about Jesus and multiply disciples for His Kingdom.
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