by Peggy Peek

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I had a roommate my freshman year in college who you used to say “God is the biggest schemer and planner of them all,” as we would sit around and ponder what God was wanting us to understand about the circumstances we found ourselves in. I am not sure that is the best description of God, but it certainly is a good description of Jacob in Genesis. Jacob had cheated his brother out of his birthright and their father’s blessing (Genesis 32).

After years away hiding from the consequences, Jacob is on his way back home to meet up with his brother, Esau. He has left in a covert way to escape his father-in-law, Laban. He has sent his family and herds ahead and has stayed behind on the journey. He has also sent gifts ahead to pacify Esau. His plan is to win him over with all of the gifts. We aren’t told why Jacob stays behind, but we are told he spends much of the night wrestling with a man—possibly God or God’s angel.

In order to end the wrestling match, the man wounds Jacob’s hip and asks Jacob to let him go. Jacob bargains with him and says he will let him go if the man blesses him. The man agrees, blesses Jacob, and changes his name to Israel. What actually helps Jacob in his struggle is not his schemes or planning but the fact that when he struggles with God and cries out, he receives a blessing and a wound that he carries with him the rest of his life—and a new name.

I think for many of us, when we are facing a struggle—either one we have willfully and sinfully caused (cheating Esau) or have been unfairly treated (Laban’s treatment of Jacob), we must not try to plan or scheme ourselves out of it. We must face God, struggle with the situation, wait for God’s blessing and how he wants to change us—sometimes because of our wounds and sometimes with a new name, or both.

As I think about Jacob and his all-night wrestling match, I am reminded of Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 12:8-10:

⁸ Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. ⁹ But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. ¹⁰ That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Paul did not receive the answer he was looking for in his pleading prayer, but he did receive the answer he needed—God’s sufficient grace for the circumstance. That grace has the power to change us into who God wants us to be as his servants. May we find delight in those daily challenges of ministry and look forward to the wrestling matches that bring blessings.

Rev. Peggy Peek is executive pastor of ministries at Thalia Lynn Baptist Church, a BGAV-participating congregation in Virginia Beach, VA.

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