PROOF YOU'VE WRESTLED

²⁴ This left Jacob all alone in the camp, and a man came and wrestled with him until the dawn began to break. ²⁵ When the man saw that he would not win the match, he touched Jacob’s hip and wrenched it out of its socket. ²⁶ 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.”
 
²⁷ “What is your name?” the man asked.
He replied, “Jacob.”²⁸ “Your name will no longer be Jacob,” the man told him. “From now on you will be called Israel,^[a] because you have fought with God and with men and have won.”  ²⁹ “Please tell me your name,” Jacob said.  “Why do you want to know my name?” the man replied. Then he blessed Jacob there.

³⁰ Jacob named the place Peniel (which means “face of God”), for he said, “I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been spared.”  (GEN.32:24-30 NLT)


No one is born a Christian.  As much as we'd love to believe this...we are born sinners.  We are brought desiring people to serve us, change us, feed us, give us, do for us....and few people grow up, and out of this mindset.  So you see how it is easy for us to go through life confused when someone introduces Christianity to us.

Jacob desired to make things right in his life.   He know he had lied and cheated Esau out of his birthright, but now it was time to face him, and he had some anxieties regarding doing so.   As if he wasn't already wrestling with facing his brother, he is now locked in a wrestling match physically with what appears to be an angle of the LORD.   Jacob knowing this.....decides not to let the angel go until he obtains a blessing, for he apparently knew if an angel was there....there had to be a blessing in this visitation.

We wrestle with many things in this life; addictions, relationships, insecurities, health, unfair expectations, wt. gain/loss, selfishness, religion, faith, finances, many other things and even with God.   But my curiosity is what are the results of what it is we wrestle with? I mean looking at the scripture above, I'm sure Jacob was changed after encountering the angel.   Not just physically because his hip had been dislocated, but even spiritually having been face to face with an angel of the LORD.  Not to add his name and identity had changed for all time that his name even to this day is associated with the very nation GOD heart breaks for, ISRAEL.

So I simply want to leave you wrestling with this thought....what is it that you wrestle with?  Are you as successful as Jacob was?  Is there a noticeable change   physically/mentally/spiritually/relationally/financial

 

or are you still in the midst of the wrestling match?  I know people that have scars from battles that they've won, and they are changed forever.   I know people that have conquered addictions, walked away from accidents and near death experiences that walk a different walk.  

I know I've wrestled with things in my life from fatherlessness, to desiring the love of my father, to insecurities, and many other things, but my prayer is that now I walk as if I've encountered GOD in my wrestling and that I walk in the victory &  power of God's might and His word, that is attractive to all those I encounter for HIS GLORY!  LGLP