Found in the FightSample

The Great Confrontation

Let’s fast forward through the years Jacob serves his devious uncle, Laban, to the moment he discovers that Esau and four hundred men are chasing him. Understandably, Jacob is stressed out. He sends his family, servants, and possessions away in the night, then has a unique, enigmatic experience with a heavenly man – a representative of God who some scholars say may even be a pre-incarnate manifestation of Christ. The divine wrestler ends the tussle by dislocating Jacob’s hip.

By dislocating Jacob’s hip, God ensures that Jacob can’t run – which has always been his go-to coping strategy. What’s more, he can’t fall back on wealth or influence. He has no one to trick or manipulate in order to gain the advantage. God is deconstructing Jacob’s false identity in order to reconstruct his true identity. Don’t resist God when He wrestles with your schedule to secure some time alone with you – so that you can wrestle with the truth.

God always goes to the root issue – the source of our problems – as opposed to alleviating surface-level niggles. A deep operation was about to take place in Jacob’s heart. Stripped of all his usual tools of combat, he couldn’t come in another’s skin. He was now in a wrestling ring, with God himself. Jacob wasn’t looking for a fight with God, and the timing didn’t suit Jacob, given what else he had going on in his life at the time. If you’re anything like me, you’re frequently frustrated by God’s timing, which generally doesn’t line up with your expectations and preferences. That’s because God is less concerned about your itinerary, and more concerned about your identity.

Jacob, an elderly man, would’ve found this strenuous fight exhausting, overwhelming, and lonely.Do you perhaps find yourself at a critical juncture – exhausted, overwhelmed, and lonely – pinned down and without hope? What has the situation revealed to you about yourself, and about God? How has it subtly or dramatically reshaped you? As always, Jacob tries negotiating and bargaining with God. He gets in all his punches and demands a blessing before he will relent. But God soon makes it clear that His power, purposes and perspective are unmatched, and that Jacob must surrender to His sovereign control. God is bent on reshaping Jacob’s deceptive tendencies. This moment of defeat was actually Jacob’s greatest victory. He had reached the end of himself – as you probably have at some point too – and what he finds there is unfathomable love.

God gave Jacob a vivid reminder of his weakness in comparison to God’s supernatural strength. Daily, he would be encouraged to rely not on his deceptive inclinations but rather on his Almighty God. Jacob’s defeat in the wrestling match became an inner victory. Though his hip had been knocked out of place, he received the revelation of who he was and what he was called to do, and it transformed him. Let’s thank God that when we’re facing a spiritual identity crisis, He gets us alone, inviting us to grapple with Him until we’re wholly dependent on Him and we’ve discovered who we are.