January 14, 2012

 

Genesis 31-33    Wrestling with God

 

Jacob was in a pickle. He was returning to his hometown and the last words of his brother Esau were playing over and over in his mind. Do you remember those words spoken by Esau? "I am going to kill my brother!" Wow, do you think those words impacted Jacob?

So what do you do when you know you are in over your head? You pray. This is called "fox hole" praying. But God is so merciful he even listens to "fox hole" prayers. Not only does God listen to the prayer of Jacob he answers it in a most unusual way. He schedules a wrestling match with the guy. If Jacob was a wrestler in WWE he would be known as "Jake the Snake." And tonight's featured match is "Jake the Snake" versus God. When Jake started out the match he was a dirty wrestler, but by the morning he was changed. When it says he wrestled God it means he wrestled with Jesus. No one has ever seen God the Father. Whenever God appears, it is the second person of the Trinity Jesus. And because of Jesus' special wrestling move, "Jake the Snake" would walk every day of his life with a limp. Sometimes the Lord hurts us in order to help us. Jacob was a weaker man physically, but he became a stronger man spiritually. He was given a new name, "Israel" which means…  "One who struggles with God."   How can we wrestle with God on a cold January day? We wrestle God through prayer. It starts out with wrestling but it ends up with clinging. We need to get hold of God today, and not let go until we know that he has touched us, forgiven us, changed us and blessed us.

 

Take some time right now and wrestle with God in prayer. Wrestle with him concerning your impossible situation, your sin, your family, your seeking friends, wrestle with him concerning the surrender of your life to his perfect will. It is in wrestling with God that we find our lives most drastically changed.

 

A note of encouragement.... We have over 50 people on our Bible reading journey this year. Everyone seems to be off to a great start. Beware!!!  You will be tempted to skip a day or two very shortly. The difficulty comes in catching up. So stay up to date. Stay disciplined in the journey. It takes 30 days of practice to create a new habit.