Far Better to Strive for Christ than Against Him

In a recent Sunday School class we briefly looked at Jacob wrestling with the angel of the Lord (Genesis 32).  What a terrifying lesson for my own life. 

It is never a good thing to “strive with [against] God.”  He is the sovereign master and we are the servants.  At least, we are supposed to be the servants who humbly submit to His will.  But Jacob had lived his entire life a prideful man, trying to get the blessings of God by his own efforts on his own timing.  This led him to effectively defraud his brother, lie to his father, attempt to defraud Laban, take more than one wife, and to do one huge amount of worrying.

And so, he was worried sick about whether he was going to die (instead of resting in all the promises that God had just given him and being comfortable that his present action and circumstances were the direct result of having received prophetic revelation).  He wanted to control the outcome of these pivotal events.  So God comes to him in the night, and instead of submitting immediately to the will of the Lord, he fights back in pride, never surrendering to God.  He fought against God until God finally uttered, “OK Jacob, you have not surrendered to My headship out of faith and you have prevailed in clinging to your sinful pride, so I am going to make you pay attention to Me by breaking your health.”  God touched his leg so as to damage the sinew of his hip, resulting in a noticeable limp. 

When we insist on doing things our way (in Jacob’s case that often meant using sinful methods) and in our own timing, and we refuse to repent (that is, we strive with God and we prevail), then God has more radical options at His disposal.  He blinded Paul temporarily to force him to pay attention.  He gave Moses leprosy of his hand to show him that he had no choice but to be a prophet and must go to Egypt’s Pharaoh.  Taking away Jacob’s health was an effective means to demonstrate to that self-dependent man that even his personal well-being is a gift from God and subject to His sovereignty.  [Note: I will immediately add that it is impossible to tell if another person’s ill health is related to a sin problem, for often, perhaps most often, ill health is merely a result of the Genesis 3 curse and is no more earned, deserved, or the fault of one man than any of other (Luke 13:1-5, John 9:1-5).]

And so Jacob (whose name meant “supplanter”), still in full possession of his own pride, working under his own power, and focused on his own timing, demanded that God bless him then and there.  So God did, but first He changed Jacob’s name to Israel.  That name means “he who strives with God,” or possibly, “God will rule over him.”  A lifetime reminder to Jacob of his own proud stand against God that night, and a memorial to all the generations of God’s people of the same.  Indeed, whether we fight against God or not, He will successfully reign over us, so the earlier we submit the more useful we might be to His Kingdom.  Far better to strive for Christ than with Him.

Now the sun rose upon him just as he crossed over Penuel, and he was limping on his thigh. (Genesis 32:31)