30 So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.” 31 The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip. 32 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. (Genesis 32:30-32)
Jacob, the conniver and manipulator, meets a moment of extreme crisis. He has to face his brother, Esau, again. He tries to manipulate the situation–dividing his camp to minimize his losses, preparing a lavish gift for Esau to try to appease him, and even offering up a desperate (yet impersonal) prayer to God.
My interpretation of Genesis 32 is based on the fact that I think Jacob’s prayer in verses 9-12 is his attempt to use God as a tool rather than submit to Him as his Lord. It is a nice prayer but it is impersonal. Jacob does not really know God. He knows of Him but he doesn’t truly love Him, worship Him, or depend on Him. God is still the God of his grandfather, Abraham, and his father, Isaac. He is not Jacob’s personal God.
God doesn’t let Jacob get away with this approach to Him. When Jacob is alone, God wrestles him. Jacob is physically wrestling a man but, in the end, he recognizes that he was really wrestling God. Jacob wrestled the God-man. Hmmm. Sounds like Jesus to me.
Jacob’s experience of physically wrestling God represented his spiritual wrestling with God. God was trying to bless Jacob, provide for him, protect him, be his God. But Jacob kept running, kept relying on his own resources, keep trying to use God to get his way rather than submit to God and follow His way.
So, in the end, God had to cripple Jacob in order to bless Jacob. Did you catch that?
Sometimes we just won’t submit. We are convinced that our way is better than God’s. We fight Him. We struggle against Him. We attempt to use Him for our own purposes. But, at some point, He will touch us in our hip, dislocate a key part of our lives, and teach us to cling to Him alone. Then, and only then, do we ask for and experience His blessing.
We experience God’s blessing in our weakness not in our strength.
The next day Jacob was different. He not only walked with a limp, but he had a new name and a new understanding and relationship with God. God was no longer his functional tool but his personal Father.
Lord, submission is not in my nature. I fight You. I want You to get on my agenda. I want You to operate on my timetable. And graciously You allow me to wrestle with You until You know that I need to be reminded of my weakness. Lord, this process scares me at times but I trust Your heart. I know Your surgery on me is always for my good. I know that even when You cripple me, Your ultimate desire is to bless me. May I experience Your blessing more and more as I come to know more and more my absolute need for You.
