The Wrestle

THE WRESTLE
The story of Jacob starts in Genesis chapter 25 (8 chapters) with Jacob grabbing his twin brother Esau’s heel at birth. He couldn’t wait, he wanted to be out there first, right from the beginning (The heel grabbing didn’t work by the way because Esau came out first), but that became the story of his life – Heel grabbing is all about impatience! Outa my way…
Jacob and Esau were the sons of Isaac, who was the son of Abraham, the father of the Hebrew Nation. Abraham was told by God that his descendants would inherit the Land of Canaan, the Promised land. So as the firstborn son of Isaac, Esau was in line for he and his descendants to inherit all the Promises given to Abraham. The inheritance was to be imparted at the end of Isaac’s life and now it was time to pass it on. The Bible says that Esau was a hairy man, a hunter, and he smelled of the hunting fields.
But Jacob cheated his Father and older brother by dressing up to smell like his older brother, and when Esau was out hunting Jacob asked his blind old father for the firstborn blessing. When Isaac reached out to lay his hands on him and impart the blessing he thought it was Esau. So Jacob received the blessing of the firstborn, with the help of his mother, and Esau missed out. She knew that Jacob had a heart after God and that Esau wasn’t interested in the spiritual blessing anyway and she decided to give God a hand..

She then tells Jacob to run away to where her brother Laban and his daughters lived. He runs away in fear of his life, knowing how angry Esau would be. On his way he camped overnight in a place called Bethel and had an encounter with God – He received a vision where God said; ‘I am The Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring with you, and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you’.
That was the first direct blessing from God to Jacob. The blessing of the PROMISE. The blessing was now Jacob’s.

Many years later after he had skillfully succeeded in prospering himself at his father-in-law Laban’s expense he decides to return to his land with his wives and children and a wealth of goods. He had been told that Esau was on his way to meet him, and of course he was afraid. So he sent his wives and children and servants ahead of him with gifts for Esau to hopefully placate his brother’s anger. He waits back and stops at a brook and it was there that Jacob has another encounter with God and that changes his life. He wrestles with God, who appears in the form of an angel and they wrestle throughout the night. He tells God that he will not let go of him until God blesses him. God touched his thigh in the wrestle and Jacob’s hip is put out of joint, and God tells Jacob he has prevailed (Lasted the distance, endured)... That was the second direct blessing from God to Jacob – The blessing of the WRESTLE.

During the struggle God asked Jacob his name and when Jacob tells him, God says ‘your name shall no longer be called Jacob, (which means conniving cheat )(the swindling heel grabber), but Israel, for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed.’ So that night the old Jacob meets the new Jacob as Israel - a change of name to indicate the change of nature. Israel means You have power with God. He no longer had to live as an impatient heel grabber – God was at work.
Jacob also asked God what his name was. God didn’t tell him his name but he asked him why he wanted to know, and Jacob says ‘because I have seen God face to face and have been preserved.’ Face=presence. He had been in the presence of God.
Power with God – Preserved – Presence of God
The real prevailing – lasting the distance, was that Jacob wanted God and needed God more than anything else, and that he was willing to face being changed and go through the wrestle with God, clinging to him and lasting the distance to receive that blessing that only God could give – being changed into the person God wanted him to be, being preserved, having power with God, living in his presence.

From that time on after the second encounter, the wrestle, Jacob walks with a limp.
God was saying to Jacob; You now have power with me, ruling with me in my strength, with your new name Israel, but only when you don't insist on ruling in your own strength as Jacob. I will be reminding you of your heel grabber weakness that you were born with every time you put weight on that leg of yours and have to limp.
Jacob’s limp was the reminder that his inherent weakness was ‘heel grabbing’ and that he had always been tempted to impatiently use that as his strength.

These two messages concerning two separate blessings from God to Jacob are lessons for us of two separate experiences of encounters with God and blessings from God that we have through Jesus.

For Jacob the first encounter was the promise of the blessings of Abraham.
Our first encounter is a revelation of the promise of the blessings we have in Jesus.
The second encounter of blessing with Jacob was his wrestle with the angel proving to himself and to God that he had a heart to pursue God to wait on God and to wait for God. That took a few years to arrive.
Our second encounter of blessing that we experience is the blessing of our WRESTLE with God, with a heart to pursue God and to wait on God and to wait for God. We don’t have to wait years for that – It can happen any time we’re ready.

Jacob had to be reminded that he was a heel grabber – that is what the limp signaled to him – that he had the potential to go back to his old manipulative impatient ways as Jacob to impatiently make God’s promises come to pass, even though he already had all the promises of the blessings of Abraham!

We have to go through the same kind of wrestle with God that Jacob went through to become the person we were meant to be. The weakness becomes the strength as we go the distance and are transformed – because of a limp!

Having a limp does not mean that we ARE the limp. It is just the opposite. Having something isn’t BEING something. The Jacob in us does not get eliminated but just gets put in its place. It no longer has dominion over us after its power over us was put to death on the cross, and the power of another life has taken its place – God with us in Jesus.
Jacob was born with a heel grabbing instinct. It was a drive to get ahead in life and his brothers heel was the closest thing to getting in his way. Jacob was given the gift of an energy to achieve, a drive that came from God. That gift also had a danger with it as well as opportunity - His life would be driven by winning and he would have defence mechanisms about losing. He would be skilled and pushy and probably put a lot of people offside. And God would be on that case to humble that attitude for the rest of his life. That drive had to be submitted to God in the Wrestle…
We all have these gifts of God’s creation in us - all different. God has given all of us a drive to get something good done that God wants done – and we are born with it. I am calling this a ‘heel grabber’ syndrome that we were born with, but we do not all want to grab heels - we are all different but we all have our own way of trying to impatiently get that good thing done that only God can get done in us.
EG, Another kind of person different to Jacob might have been created with the heart and the energy to be an encourager and a motivator, and they would not have grabbed the heel but maybe instead give Esau’s heel a shove forward - but then they would want the emotional payoff of being appreciated and approved of. They’d have to learn to manage that for the rest of their lives and they would have their Transformation sign post limp to remind them. 
Another might have a drive for justice and be given the gift of compassion and feel bad for poor Esau and Pat his little heel and shed a tear. That little justice warrior would have a sensitivity about victims all their life and perhaps even perceive themselves that way, and God would have to sort that all out in the Wrestle and give them a limp..
And on and on it goes- So we are quite a zoo when it comes to this.

We will look at a couple of others in the Bible whose impatient reaction to things that God allowed into their lives caused God to give them some kind of a limp to be made aware of their impatience and to learn to wait for God in how they managed their gift – and be Transformed..
So - Jacob impatiently grabbed a heel and Moses impatiently struck a rock. (God had told him to simply speak to the rock but he got impatient). Paul became impatiently irritated by his thorn in the flesh and asked God three times to make it go away but God told Paul he had to live with it because his grace was sufficient for him.

Paul’s thorn in the flesh was his limp, but he allowed that to be a signpost to Transformation - to show him that God’s grace was causing him to become the person who he really was in Christ. 1Corinthians 15:10: ‘I am what I am by the grace of God’
Paul tells us about his wrestle with God and we learn about his ‘walks with a limp’ experience;

2Corinthians 12:7: (Message) Because of the extravagance of those revelations, and so I wouldn't get a big head, I was given the gift of a handicap, a thorn in the flesh, to keep me in constant touch with my limitations. Satan's messenger did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees. No danger then of walking around high and mighty! At first I didn't think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it. Three times I did that, and then he told me, ‘My grace is sufficient; it's all you need because My strength comes into its own in your weakness.’ Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ's strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer (The hall of funny mirrors), these limitations that cut me down to size-- abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become.
Paul is telling us we are here to experience the awareness of our limitations but to use that to grow into spiritual growth in the limitless grace of God, and the limp simply loses its power to handicap us in living the life of Jesus within.
With faith we accept the transformation process and the weakness becomes the strength.

The nature of the wrestle – the struggle against impatience.

Cling to God. We see God face to face in the sense that we know we are in his presence.
We wait for his power to achieve what we cannot achieve – This needs faith and patience. With Faith and patience we inherit the promise. Faith receives it and patience perceives it we see it as out reality.
So we last the distance ie, prevail with God – we have power with God..
We wait on God so that we can wait for God.
We can either wrestle with the world much of the time or wrestle against darkness much of the time. But if we wrestle first with God the wrestle with life in the world and with the attacks of darkness to defeat us are undertaken by God - showing himself strong on our behalf.
We are living in a time in history when there have never been so many people who have sense of loss of the power of being able to control or change their circumstances and God is inviting anybody who is willing to come to him and have that wrestle.
God showed Jacob – God showed Moses – God showed Paul – God will show you.