April 11, 2007

• Then Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak…And he said, “Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel; for you have striven with God and with me and have prevailed.” (Genesis 32:24, 28)

  
  

  “Heel grabber” is what Jacob’s name means, a name you would expect of a wrestler. Jacob’s entire life up till now was spent calculating his next move and maneuvering to a position of advantage so he could pry from God’s hands so many of the blessings that God in time had wanted to give him anyway.

  
  

  Now it was God’s turn to grab Jacob’s heel, to wrestle with this fundamental flaw in his nature, and touch him in a way so he would never forget the encounter. Through the ordeal, Jacob learned that God’s blessing comes not from grabbing but from clinging.

  
  

  There’s something of Jacob in all of us, I think. If so, there must be a night of reckoning for us as well. A night when God finds us alone, grabs us, throws us to the ground, and wrestles with that fundamental flaw in our character. In that dark night of the soul, though He cripples us, in the dawn He blesses us.

  
  

  For some of us, the crippling is the blessing.

  
  

  -Ken Gire

  • 12:45 am
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