WRESTLE FOR THE BLESSING

WRESTLE FOR THE BLESSING

In this Praiseletter I’m going to do something a little different. I’m going to draw from one of my favorite devotionals, Streams in the Desert. I read this devotional almost a month ago, and it blessed me greatly. And I believe it will bless some of you who find yourself in a struggle; a struggle for hope, a struggle for healing, a struggle for direction.

“Jacob was left alone and a man wrestled with him till daybreak” (Genesis 32:24).

In this passage, God is wrestling with Jacob more than Jacob is wrestling with God. The “man” referred to here is the Son of Man — the Angel of the Covenant. It was God in human form, pressing down on Jacob to press his old life from him. And by daybreak God had prevailed, for Jacob’s “hip was wrenched” (v.25).

As Jacob “fell” from his old life, he fell into the arms of God, clinging to Him but also wrestling until his blessing came. His blessing was that of a new life, so he rose from the earthly to the heavenly, the human to the divine, and the natural to the supernatural.

From that morning forward, he was a weak and broken man from a human perspective, but God was there. And the Lord’s heavenly voice proclaimed, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome” (v.28).

Beloved, this should be a typical scene in the life of everyone who has been transformed. If God has called us to His highest and best, each of us will have a time of crisis, when all our resources will fail, and when we face either ruin or something better than we have ever dreamed.

But before we can receive the blessing, we must rely on God’s infinite help. We must be willing to let go, surrendering completely to Him, and cease from our own wisdom, strength, and righteousness. We must be “crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2:20) and yet alive in Him. God knows how to lead us to the point of crisis, and He knows how to lead us through it.

Is God leading you in this way? Is this the meaning of your mysterious trial, your difficult circumstances, your impossible situation, or that trying place you cannot seem to move past without Him? But do you have enough of Him to win the victory?

Then turn to Jacob’s God! Throw yourself helplessly at His feet. Die in His loving arms to your own strength and wisdom, and rise like Jacob into His strength and sufficiency. There is no way out of your difficult and narrow situation except at the top. You must win deliverance by rising higher, coming into a new experience with God. And may it bring you into all that is meant by the revelation of “the Mighty One of Jacob” (Isaiah 60:16)! There is no way out but God.

(From: Streams in the Desert - Aug. 20)

I sometimes envision Jacob coming back across the river, in the morning, after wrestling with the angel. His hair is messed up, his clothes are torn, he’s scraped and bruised, and limping badly! And perhaps from across the shore, his wife calls out, “Oh Jacob, what has happened to you?” And he says, “I have been blessed by God!”

Sometimes, “blessing” looks different than what we might expect. Many times there is a cost to the blessing.

So I encourage you today; in fact, I challenge you…Wrestle For the Blessing!

In Christ,

Dallas Holm