Genesis 32:24 “And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.”

Genesis 32:25 “And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him.”

Genesis 32:26 “And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.”

One of the things that makes the Bible so exciting is what God chooses to record. Out of everything that could be said, the details that God chooses to make available to us must be very important! And they are… although it may take a while for their relevance to become apparent in our lives.

In Genesis 32, we get an inside look at a key moment in Jacob’s life. He’s a major character in Genesis, and a wonderful study. In Genesis 32 he comes to a place in life that he will forever look back on as “Peniel”.

As will be the case with us, there were several particularly important places Jacob arrived at on his journey… 20 years earlier, Jacob had a life changing night at a place he called “Bethel”, where God personally revealed himself to him. Hopefully Jesus Christ has become personal to you!

But now 20 years on from that, and a lot has happened! … and Jacob is going to have another profound night time experience, and it’s brought about by the biggest personal crisis he’s faced yet… he’s about to face his brother that he’d wronged in the past, who last thing he’d heard had sworn to kill him on sight.

…Yikes! you thought you had family drama! And Jacob’s in a really tough spot in this chapter as suddenly he’s thrust into unavoidable meeting with his brother, and he goes into complete meltdown.

… He doesn’t realize it at the time, but this crisis will be the arena for a major spiritual work going on in his life… and he’ll never be the same again as God will change his name, and walk, and life. He’s a good Father.

… Often we just don’t see the spiritual dimension to what is going on in our lives. We live in such a cold dead secular society, and religion also, that we fail to account for the spiritual realm, especially in our practical lives, but which is more real than the natural.

In this story, it’s amazing to find out what’s really going on in Jacob’s life and where the real problem was. Often the problem isn’t the problem! … Because unseen to everyone else, Jacob’s real issue is that he has a battle going on… and it’s against someone you wouldn’t guess unless the Bible told you… Jacob is fighting with God!

It’s amazing what comes out when God gets us alone! He got Jacob alone, he will eventually get you alone to get personal and your attention… you can’t escape it forever, Jacob dodged successfully for 20 years before this eventual checkmate!

But it’s amazing that out of all the battles we can be fighting in life, often the biggest struggle going on is between us and God. Maybe that’s you right now! What are you fighting God about? Whatever the case… God isn’t who you should be fighting!

When you consider how good God had been to Jacob, it is strange that Jacob had this fight going on… but is it any different with us? Why do we fight Jesus Christ so much? “it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.” Think about what you are doing!

Yet the battle can be long… Jacob fought God all night! And we may fight pretty well… Jacob sure did! As crazy as it seems… God was not winning this battle! And so God weakened Jacob by taking away his ability to fight… Not fair! … but it was merciful, because we all need to go from clawing at God to clinging on to him for dear life!

It was when God said… ok then, I’m going! that his breakthrough came in Jacob’s life. Being left by God and losing God in this world was unimaginable to Jacob. Imagine facing up to his “loose unit” bro, consequences of sin and future journey of life without God… who had been the one surefire good thing in his life to date.

Do you really want to fight Jesus so much he leaves you? A lot of people don’t seem to mind doing life without God. They resist him, kick him away, and he’ll leave. But hopefully for you and I, this is not an option.

Jesus Christ is definitely not who you should choose to make your enemy in this world! But for whatever reason, we fight him a lot, even Christians. We fight him about trusting him. We fight him about obeying him. It can be the strangest fight as this was.

… Salvation and the promises and personal relationship with God in life is a very precious thing to be offered freely by our Creator in this world… he can be trusted, he is good and always does right… rather than fighting him about everything, instead just hang on and don’t let him go. It’ll be more power to you.

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