Waiting & Wrestling
Genesis 32
GENESIS 32:1 (ESV)
Jacob went on his way,
GENESIS 32:1-2 (ESV)
Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him. And when Jacob saw them he said, "This is God's camp!" So he called the name of that place Mahanaim.
GENESIS 32:24 (NLT)
This left Jacob all alone in the camp, and a man came and wrestled with him until the dawn began to break.
GENESIS 32:26 (NLT)
Then the man said, "Let me go, for the dawn is breaking!" But Jacob said, "I will not let you go unless you bless me."
GENESIS 32:29b (NLT)
Then he blessed Jacob there.
"That night, as Jacob stood alone by the river Jabbok, God met him. There were hours of desperate, agonized conflict, spiritual and, as it seemed to Jacob, physical also. Jacob had hold of God; he wanted a blessing, an assurance of divine favor and protection in this crisis; but he could not get what he sought. Instead, he grew ever more conscious of his own state–utterly helpless and without God, utterly hopeless.
The nature of Jacob’s “prevailing” with God was simply that he held on to God while God weakened him and wrought in him the spirit of submission and self-distrust; that he desired God’s blessing so much that he clung to God through all this painful humbling, till he came low enough for God to raise him up..."
J. I. Packer, Knowing God
1st Identity
GENESIS 32:26b-28 (NIV)
But Jacob said, "I will not let you go unless you bless me." The man asked, What is your name? "Jacob," he answered. Then the man said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel." because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome."
2nd Intuition
GENESIS 32:29-30 (NIV)
Jacob said, "Please tell me your name." But he replied, "Why do you ask my name?" Then he blessed him there. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, "It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared."
3rd Intervention
GENESIS 33:4 (NIV)
But Esau ran to meet Jacob and embraced him; he threw his arms around his neck and kissed him. And they wept.
GENESIS 32:31-32 (NLT)
The sun was rising as Jacob left Peniel, and he was limping because of the injury to his hip. (Even today the people of Israel don't eat the tendon near the hip socket because of what happened that night when the man strained the tendon of Jacob's hip.)
