Hmmph..

Genesis 32 v 22-28 speaks much of a man called Jacob, son of Isaac, grandson of Abraham. In particular, a passage that catches most people is when Jacob wrestles with God.

Do we all have a Jacob nature? Or a Jacob experience?

I never really thought about this part of scripture much until a few days ago.

"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.

This is my take home point from this passage. Its easy too when I look at the past few days and apply it to my own life.

There is 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 and 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!!

Ted Loder wrote this prayer in his book entitled "Guerillas of Grace"

O persistent God, deliver me from assuming your mercy is gentle.
Pressure me that I may grow more human, not through the lessening of my struggles
But through an expansion of them...
Deepen my hurt until I learn to share it and myself openly, and my needs honestly.
Sharpen my fears until I name them
And release the power I have locked in them and they in me.
Accentuate my confusion until I shed those grandiose expectations that divert me from the small, gald gifts of the now and the here and the me.
Expose my shame where it shivers, crouched behind the curtains of propriety,
Until I can laugh at last through my common frailties and failures,
Laugh my way toward becoming whole