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"I will not let thee go, except thou bless me".
Genesis 32:26
Today we complete thoughts stemming from these words of Jacob, a man in desperate need for God's help as he faced death.
"I will not let thee go, except thou bless me" were Jacob's urgent words as he had the amazing experience of literally wrestling with an angel, believed to be Jesus in preincarnate form.
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It was night and Jacob was alone, except for the presence of this angel, who was wrestling with him.
In hip pain from the angel's injury to it, in pain of heart and mind as he felt his unworthiness for God's mercies and the prosperity with which God had blessed him, in fear of his life from his own twin brother Esau with whom he had shared his mother's womb, Jacob had pleaded God's promise to him that He had said He would do him good and give him innumerable descendants, pleading that it had been God's instructions to him to return to his homeland.
But now, dawn was coming, the sun about to rise, and the angel had told Jacob to let him go, he needed to leave. But Jacob could not let the angel go until he had that assurance that he had God's comfort, protection and love - God's blessing.
In part 1 of these thoughts we talked about this wrestle of Jacob with God and what it means - how we too may wrestle with God when we are faced with desperate or difficult things.
Then in part 2 we considered how these desperate wrestling times teach us about ourselves individually as they bring us to face up to who and what we are.
Today we conclude with some thoughts on four lessons of encouragement and comfort we can take from Jacob's wrestle with God, which apply to us today, in 2024.
1. God's love to us today
Firstly, as the angel came to Jacob and allowed Jacob to wrestle with him it shows God's great condescension, kindness and patience in allowing us to likewise wrestle with Him in prayer today.
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We so underestimate and misunderstand God's love for His children - but here He was, as we believe, in the preincarnate form of His beloved Son, allowing sinful man to remind Him of the promises He had spoken to him, allowing man to touch him with his urgent need and requests.
God knows today of your great problem. He is close by in Spirit. He feels your pains and despair as if they were His own. He listens to your sobs, your cries, your wordless heartache, needs and fears. He wants you to ask great things of Him. He delights to see your trust in Him, your dependence on Him. He loves to have you cling to Him. He can do so much for you, more than you can even ask or think.
2. God's forgiveness and transformation of sinners today
Secondly, it encourages us that just as God knew everything about Jacob's past, just as He knows everything about mine and your pasts, when we confess to Him who and what we are with genuine contrition and repentance He will accept us for Jesus' sake, and give us a new name.
As Jacob's name was changed from one meaning supplanter and deceiver, to Israel, meaning Prince with God, so you and I are transformed by God and given a new nature, new heart and new life.
3. God does impossible things for those He loves
Thirdly, it encourages us that we will see the evidence that God hears our prayers and overcomes impossible things for us, and that they are tokens of His love for us.
After meeting Esau - who miraculously 'ran to meet him (Jacob), and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him' (Genesis 33:4), Jacob said, '...I have seen thy face, as though I had seen the face of God, and thou wast pleased with me' (Genesis 33:10).
Jacob looked past this wonderful change in events to what it signified from God. It told him that God had heard his prayers, that God had overcome this impossible situation, and it was a visible manifestation of God's love and favour to him.
It was like a smile from God.
How utterly overcome with love and unworthiness we feel when we see such tokens of God's love to us in answering our prayers of impossibility!
4. Humble yourself before God and He will exalt you - a witness of God's grace in you
Fourthly, it teaches and encourages us as we read in 1 Peter 5:6&7, 'humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you'.
Jacob here is an example of this truth. Jacob totally cast his cares on God, totally humbled himself in his admission and confession of his desperate need of God to help him. He was not too high and mighty to show his dependence on God for deliverance.
And not only did he humble himself before God, but he humbled himself before Esau, his army - and his own family and servants who would have been watching - bowing himself to the ground 7 times as he approached Esau. Such homage, my study Bible tells us, was normally reserved for meeting a king - not your own twin brother! How we might shrink from such outward show of humiliation!
But think what a witness this was to Esau of God's work in Jacob. How Esau must have wondered.
Where was the deceitful, conniving brother who had taken his birthright and blessing - the favoured child of their mother who had come out of their mother's womb grabbing hold of Esau's heel - as if even in birth he was trying to take Esau's place?
See what a work of grace does in a person. How it makes them gentle, dependent on God, loving, humble and more. What a witness it is to to other's of God's work in our hearts.
Dear reader, as we conclude these thoughts, may you too be enabled by God to tell Him all your desperate need. To wrestle with Him in prayer until He answers you and gives you His blessing.
May you look on in amazement as you see God going before you today, in your life, whatever your great problem and distress, making 'crooked things straight' and 'rough places plain', and may these overcome impossibilities tell you that God loves you.
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