Jacob Wrestling with God

Hello all,

A month or so ago, I was listening to a Jason Upton podcast when I caught a part where Jason says that often we think we're struggling against Satan when we're actually avoiding the cross and struggling with God. The cross is the place of being reborn. In hearing this, God reminded me of the story of Jacob wrestling God.
The story comes from Genesis 32, and it's important to look at the background. Jacob was approaching his brother Esau and wanted his mercy, so he sent some messengers to talk to him. After these messengers, Esau was approaching Jacob with 400 men. Jacob, given the past history with his brother (stealing his brother's birthright, etc.), was worried that his brother was angry. As Esau continues to approach, Jacob divides up what he owns:
Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed; and he divided the people who were with him, and the flocks and herds and camels, into two groups, thinking, if Esau comes to the one group and smites it, then the other group which is left will escape. I don't pretend to have a great understanding of Hebrew or the roots of words, but they do fascinate me. I am the kind of person who likes to reach the root of everything, constantly digging deeper. According to abarim-publications.com (http://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Esau.html), the name Esau although usually accepted as meaning "hairy" on a superficial level, "to a Hebrew audience the name Esau means doer." It comes from a verb that means "to do, to fashion, to accomplish." With this information, this story takes on a different light for me.

Jacob is preparing to meet the revenge of his brother, Esau; he is fearful and anticipating death by a doer. He keeps dividing up his life in an effort to appease the doer and preserve his life. How often do we compartmentalize our lives, striving to get it all done, trying to please our inner "doer"? How often do we try to be in too many places at once and are committed to too many people? How often do we feel the stress of everything that we think we have to do or accomplish lingering over our heads like a dark cloud? What is worse is that just like Jacob, in trying to preserve ourselves and our way of a doing life, we have divided hearts. So often, it's even the task we're trying to do for God that is stealing our time and attention to God. Just like Jacob, we keep dividing and trying to conquer in order to prevent the failure, the loss of our accomplishments, and to avoid this part of ourselves dying--when that it exactly what God calls us to and exactly what we need.

The story continues:
Deliver me, I pray You, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau; for I fear him, lest he come and smite us all, the mothers with the children. And You said, I will surely do you good and make your descendants as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.
Notice that God did not say Jacob would accomplish this. He didn't say that Jacob would do good or that he would somehow make this happen. It's God's work. God's the One who said He'd do it, not Jacob.

Jacob keeps sending gifts ahead of him to meet Esau:
For he said, I will appease him with the present that goes before me, and afterward I will see his face; perhaps he will accept me.I identify with this attitude because I struggle so often with deceiving myself into thinking that I can't come to God empty-handed. My life is so little, so insignificant, that I think I have to constantly be doing something for Him. But the truth is that the gift that He wants isn't my feeble attempts to outdo Him and His work--it's my life. He just wants my life. And the truth is that He always accepts me and you and everyone regardless of how small we are. So often, the one we're trying to appease isn't God, but ourselves. We are afraid of seeing His face and being in His presence without something to hide behind because we do not love ourselves or see ourselves as He does. The greatest gift we could ever give the Father is to grasp that Christ in us is enough to abide with Him.

But he rose up that [same] night and took his two wives, his two women servants, and his eleven sons and passed over the ford [of the] Jabbok. And he took them and sent them across the brook; also he sent over all that he had. Jacob prepares for fighting Esau during the night--the place of waiting, the place of painful patience. To prepare, he sends his family and everything he owns away, across the Jabbok River. Jacob is entirely alone. It is only when he is finally alone--stripped of family, security, power, and possessions--that he can encounter God.

And Jacob was left alone, and a Man wrestled him until daybreak. And when [the Man] saw that he did not prevail against [Jacob], He touched the hollow of his thigh; and Jacob's thigh was put out of joint as he wrestled with Him. It's interesting that Jacob had just been steeped in fear of Esau, yet he now fights with all he has.

The He said, Let Me go, for day is breaking. But Jacob said, I will not let You go unless You declare a blessing upon me.
Daybreak in this case could mean a new birth; he's alerting Jacob that he's about to be reborn. It's also been argued that if Jacob were to see God in the light of day, he'd die, for no one can see God's face and live. God was trying to spare Jacob's life, but Jacob demands more--a blessing. The Man doesn't refuse because when does God refuse those who earnestly ask for more of Him?

[The Man] asked him, What is your name? And [in shock of realization, whispering] he said, Jacob [supplanter, schemer, trickster, swindler]! This is the exact same question that Isaac asks Jacob when Jacob is stealing Esau's birthright. Jacob, in that moment with Isaac, calls himself Esau, "doer," trying to deceive his father so that he could receive a blessing. But when the Man (God) asks Jacob what his name is, he is finally truthful with himself and God--he's already been stripped of everything in his life--and says his name is Jacob. In that moment of confession, he realizes that his name is appropriate, that he is a trickster. He has tried to deceive himself, God, and others that he could do it all. Now, he has to acknowledge that he can't trick God into blessing him. The message in all of this is clear to me. Who do we think we're kidding when we try to do it all? God is not capable of loving us any more because of what we do. He already loves us enough. Our works do not win His approval. He already approves of us. He made us. How desolate is a life that tries to trick God into giving a blessing...as if He were some kind of a slot machine? We have to reach an honest place where we are no longer trying to trick others, ourselves, or God with our works. God already knows we can nothing of eternal value on our own, and He won't bless the work we do outside of His will, His yoke--because He is interested in bringing Himself glory and not us.

And He said, Your name shall be called no more Jacob [supplanter], but Israel [contender with God]; for you have contended and have power with God and with men and have prevailed. According to the aforementioned website, (http://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Israel.html), Israel in deeper etymology means "God strives." What a volume that should speak to us! God takes a deceitful trickster of a man who once tried to portray himself as an Esau, a "doer," and renames him "God strives." He takes the burden of doing and making himself someone and hiding behind his gifts and replaces it with the assurance that He's the one doing. He's the one working on Jacob's (now Israel's) behalf. But this supernatural name change could only come about after Jacob had finally confessed his weakness and who he really was to God.

Then Jacob asked Him, Tell me, I pray You, what [in contrast] is Your name? But He said, Why is it that you ask My name? And [the Angel of God declared] a blessing on [Jacob] there. And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel [the face of God], saying, For I have seen God face to face, and my life is spared and not snatched away. By this time, it is daybreak, and he has a new name and is reborn. I think contending with God and man represents contending with man-pleasing and letting God deal with him. He pursued God for more (insisting on the blessing) and got it. He defeats the doer and the trickster to become a true prince of God.

And as he passed Penuel [Peniel], the sun rose upon him, and he was limping because of his thigh. According to the exegesis, "An Exegetical Analysis of Genesis 32:22-32" by Philip Higley (2004) of Northwest University, "the contrast of having a new name (Israel) and a new limp is also important because the new name of Israel will last forever while his new limp will forever remind him that God has complete control over him." (http://eagle.northwestu.edu/academic/ministry/faculty/bstallman/BibInterp/Fame/04FA-ex/c1_Higley.pdf)

If you start reading the chapter after this story, he meets up with Esau who accepts him happily. Before wrestling God, Jacob was moving across the land quickly in an attempt to better manage Esau's response to him (man-pleasing), but in chapter 33, Esau is prompting Jacob to move faster, and Jacob gently refuses saying:
You know, my lord, that the children are tender and delicate and need gentle care, and the flocks and herds with young are of concern to me; for if the men should overdrive them for a single day, the whole of the flocks would die. Let my lord, I pray you, pass over before his servant; and I will lead on slowly, governed by [consideration for] the livestock that set the pace before me and the endurance of the children Jacob's behavior has changed. As usual, Esau is eager to get to work doing, but I imagine that having a God-given limp slowed down Jacob and made him empathetic to the children and the flocks. As the chapter continues, Jacob does travel slowly, but he stops and takes the time to build an altar and worship God.

I draw several general conclusions from this study:
1) God does not call us to be the doers. He calls us to contend with Him, making our petitions known and spending time in His presence on behalf of others. He is the One to be doing His work for His glory, not ours.
2) To be reborn, we have to come to terms with the ways that we may be trying to hide behind our works and be willing to confess that we can't do it all. We have to be willing to be stripped of everything--home, family, possessions, wealth, and even our name and who we think we are or are supposed to be.
3) At the root of our doing and compartmentalized, divided heart living is man-pleasing--even if the only humans we're pleasing are ourselves.
4) We need God to knock us out of joint. We need to have the "handicap" (in the world's eyes) of insatiable hunger for God above all else. Then He can set us in the appropriate pace for His kingdom.

I also take away many personal lessons from this story. While it may seem odd, my biggest fear in moving to Honduras is not the culture or the language. It's not the lack of comfortable conveniences. It's not even leaving home and family (although I know that will be difficult). My biggest fear is that I might lose sight of God, becoming too busy doing things for Him that I forget to spend time with Him. The need is so intensely great in Honduras, and the lifestyle of the ministry is so fast-paced. And as I have demonstrated time and time again, I have such a weakness in trying to do it all, in being a workaholic. I am known for compromising sleep and health and sanity for work, and as my dear friends, Anthony and Gabrielle, have quietly been teaching me in accordance with the Word, resting is Biblical. Rest to me means abiding with Him in all moments of the day. It means taking on His yoke ONLY and surrendering my own and even the yokes that others would like to put on me. It means spending time in worship with Him. My struggle with this fear--especially that I am inadequate and that I will fall into this trap yet again once I move--comes in waves. Yesterday was one of them, but I found comfort in an excerpt from Elisabeth Elliot's book Keep a Quiet Heart:
...our insignificance does not matter at all, we do not come to the Father in our own name but in the Name of His beloved Son. His ear is always open to that Name. Of this we can be certain. ... he [Satan] is much more afraid of our prayer than our work.
This past week (and month really) has been a busy one in Honduras, and from talking to Roy and hearing a voicemail from Papí Alvin, I know that there has been much recent heartache. I can hear the stress and exhaustion in both of their voices, and while I'm not there yet, I feel the burdens they carry. It's a heaviness that weighs on me so much that I just cry and beg God to show me what to do to ease it. And He always leads me to extensive prayer, and given the excerpt above, it is no wonder why. (The scriptures Elisabeth Elliot lists in that chapter of Isaiah 40, Psalm 27:8, Isaiah 45:19, 1 John 5:14-15, and Philippians 4:6-7 were also great encouragements.)

I particularly love the last part of what God showed me in that story of Jacob. Last night, on a whim, I took a couple of spiritual gifting-type assessments online just out of curiosity. Shepherding and showing mercy were top attributes for me on all of them. In wanting to be a missionary, I sometimes forget how I don't really fit the stereotypical idea of a missionary. I'm not much of a preacher and am fairly soft-spoken although public speaking doesn't frighten me. Just as I mentioned before, I am the kind of person who is constantly digging for the root--of a problem, of a person, of a passage, of God's purposes. Thus, while I love Jesus dearly, my means of sharing Him is often not through going up to strangers and giving a standard run-down of the Gospel. I think every person is different and receives Jesus differently. Therefore, it takes me so much longer to verbally share Jesus with others because I am so relationship-oriented. I want to share in people's struggle and life story before I spout off about what I think they need to do with their lives. Growing up in church, I always kind of felt like a failure because I'm not a big "soul winner" in the conventional meaning of the Christianese concept. I just seek to love as Jesus does. Sometimes, that means being direct and verbal about the Gospel, but often, it does not. Being out of church for this long has taught me that it truly does take all kinds, that God works through people differently even if it doesn't lead to immediate, tangible results or numbers.

Last night, after reading the results of those spiritual gifting assessments (which weren't surprising to me), I found myself asking God how I can be an "effective" missionary when my means of reaching out to others isn't preaching and immediate results evangelism. It's slow--it's showing mercy and coming alongside people in the midst of what they're feeling and dealing with and encouraging them. It's seed planting which means I exit from various groups of people and phases of life wondering if my love ever impacted anyone because the fruit isn't immediate usually. The truth is that I may never see it. I find a lot of encouragement in Jacob's "slowness" in chapter 33. Discipleship has always been very close to my heart. The western church seems to put so much emphasis on numbers and praying the salvation prayer, that it seems to forget that people keep existing and dealing with everyday life after they pray that happy, little, repeat-after-me prayer. We tend to hound people to "get involved" and take on a role or position in the church hierarchy so they can reach more and more numbers and "find their niche" without stopping to consider if they've had a chance to fall in love with Jesus, without leading them to depth in their relationship with Christ. And then we wonder why the church looks good superficially with lots of leaders and flash but behind closed doors is falling apart in sin. There's no depth.

You know, my lord, that the children are tender and delicate and need gentle care, and the flocks and herds with young are of concern to me; for if the men should overdrive them for a single day, the whole of the flocks would die. Let my lord, I pray you, pass over before his servant; and I will lead on slowly, governed by [consideration for] the livestock that set the pace before me and the endurance of the children


I think this passage is God's answer to my question, His purpose for my life. It does take all kinds, and my heart is with the children--the children of age but also the children in spiritual maturity as well. I don't want to see the church in Honduras or the US or anywhere overdriving the children. I want them to be able to reach spiritual maturity, and my heart is to come alongside them to help make that possible according to how God sees fit. I don't want flocks to die because their relationships with God don't have depth yet. While I can't pretend that I know what this looks like in a practical sense, I want to be willing to be a voice of slowing, even if that means I look weird to other believers, even if that means I seem lazy or unfruitful. I want to be obedient to the Father in setting an example of resting in Him--which means not filling every second of my time with something to "do" for Him. It means taking the time to soak in the sweetness of His presence, letting Him fill me so that it is truly His presence and love that overflows onto others.

With love and resting,
Sarah