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Prayer 119: Wrestling With God

Let’s get into the word.

Gen 32:1-

Gen 32:22-

Hearing God’s Voice

Hearing God’s voice does not mean things will always be easy.

God told Jesus to go to the cross.

God’s ultimate purpose for your life is not that you be happy.

It’s that you be conformed to the image of Christ.

Transforming you to act, talk, love and forgive like Jesus is going to require changing you at the very core of who you are.

Just as an actual physical heart transplant would be painful, a spiritual transplant can be equally painful.

We have to die to self, pride, bitterness, anger, resentment, greed and be transformed into the image of Christ.

Jacob hears God tell him to leave, but watch what follows:

He has to convince his wives

He has to pack up his entire household

He has to journey all the way back to Canaan, 500 miles, on foot with his wives, children, servants, sheep, goats and camels.

Laban takes a small army to attack him

Esau comes out to kill him

God wrestles with him

Jacob 100% heard from God, but that did not guarantee the journey was going to be easy.

Quite the opposite.

Many times, the more certain we are we have heard God’s voice, the more challenging the task will be.

The problem is focus.

We tend to look at the journey, the destination, the outcomes.

All the while, God is focusing on us, and how Christlike we are and how to He can make us more like Jesus.

Jesus blessed those who killed Him.

Kissed the one who betrayed Him.

Saved those who defied Him.

Forgave those cheered His death.

What injustice have you suffered lately?

How have you responded?

If your response was more derived from the situation than your savior, then God has a deeper work to do in you.

Everything around us is temporary.

You are eternal.

God is more concerned about the transformation of your soul than He is the accomplishments of your hands.

Just because something is hard does not mean it is wrong.

Just because something is delayed does not mean it is denied.

Just because something fails does not mean you are finished.

Just because you struggle does not mean you are weak.

It may mean you are being purified, refined and strengthened for God’s purpose.

What matters most to God is not whether or not you succeed or fail.

What matters most is that you grow more like Christ, respond like Christ, live like Christ.

So when the money is tight, when your name is criticized, when relationships are strained, when your health is affected, when danger is everywhere and problems try to drown you- don’t lose perspective.

These things are tools that God uses to shape you, to refine your character, to prepare you for His purpose.

It does not mean you have failed or been rejected or that you are being punished.

It means God is working in you to prepare you for all that He has called you to do.

So what do you do when you know God has spoken, but times get tough.

Hold To the Promise

Gen

9 And Jacob said, “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O LORD who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your kindred, that I may do you good,’ 10 I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant, for with only my staff I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps.

11 Please deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I fear him, that he may come and attack me, the mothers with the children.

12 But you said, ‘I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.’

”

God told Jacob to return to his homeland.

So he sets out secretly for fear of his father-in-law.

Did Jacob make a mistake?

It is hard to say.

Laban had changed Jacob’s wages over and over.

Would he have taken away Jacob’s flocks and wives and children?

We cannot say what he would have done if Jacob had approached him before leaving, but we can be pretty sure that is exactly what he intended to do as he was racing across the desert to catch up to Jacob.

As people, we have a tendency to place blame.

Well Jacob left wrong.

Maybe.

Maybe not.

But either way, though Jacob obeyed God imperfectly- as all of us surely will- God protected Jacob and helped him.

I think that is pretty good news.

God appeared to Laban and warned him not to say anything good or bad to Jacob.

Wow! God Himself got involved.

Pretty powerful.

It must have been sobering, because as angry as Laban was- he didn’t give Jacob any trouble the next day when he saw him.

As Jacob returns to his homeland, his Brother Esau gathers a small army and rides towards him aggressively.

Holding to God’s promise leaves us vulnerable.

It leaves us in the place that we cannot help ourselves.

It leaves us dependent on God and God alone.

Returning home exposed Jacob to Esau’s wrath.

There has been no relationship or communication between them for 24 years.

The last thing Jacob heard from Esau was that Esau planned to kill him.

Yet the word of God is the only thing that will stand.

It is the only hope we have.

My daily lifestyle right now is to point out the problems to God and then Praise Him for taking care of them.

But there is power in reminding God of His word.

He has not forgotten.

He has not failed.

But reminding Him of His word strengthens your faith, clarifies your direction and sustains you in difficult times.

Hold to His Word.

Trust God until He fails you and then you do not have to trust Him anymore.

Honesty

Jacob was honestly dishonest.

Yet his trials bring him to a place where he gets honest with God.

Trials have a way of helping us see what is really inside of us.

Silver has to be refined in the fire.

It is heated until it gets so hot that not only does it melt, but the different elements within it separate and then the impurities can be easily removed.

God appears to Jacob and begins wrestling with Him.

Now come on folks- I think we all know who would have one this match if God had wanted to win.

So why was God wrestling with Jacob?

To help Jacob become Israel.

The help him reach his potential.

To help him overcome the labels put on him by people.

People had named him Jacob.