Does your life feel like a constant striving? Our family sometimes find that living with disability can often feel like this; you have to fight for accessibility, fight for equipment, strive with medical professionals who don’t understand your son’s rare condition, strive to get registered as a vulnerable customer with the electricity board, fight for treatment. But for Jacob, taking on a disability became the end of striving in some way.
Jacob’s life had been one of striving and fighting from his birth until now. He fought with his brother as he came out of the womb grabbing onto his twin’s heel (Genesis 25:26). He strove to get his father’s blessing (Gen 27) and he wrestled with his father-in-law who kept tricking him (Gen 29-31). And now he’s striving to get his brother’s favour or grace (Gen 32:5, 20).
It’s at this point that God meets with him and changes him through a night of wrestling! What a shock for Jacob as a man appears out of nowhere and knocks him to the ground. The wrestling match continued all night, perhaps God was allowing Jacob to continue fighting like a father may allow his son to ‘fight’ against him even though there is no contest. We see that God is so powerful as when the morning comes He puts his hip out of joint with just a touch. But Jacob prevailed by admitting his dependence, he needed God to bless him. From this moment on, Jacob’s life was changed, he would walk with a limp from now on, but he had learnt the vital lesson to lean on God. We are often so similarly slow to learn this, and sometimes God brings painful trials into our lives to make us rely on him all the more. Even the apostle Paul was given a ‘thorn in the flesh’ to teach him God’s sufficient grace and His power made perfect in weakness.
Jacob had a constant reminder of his need to rely on God, from now on he walked at a slower pace (33:14), but he walked with God. He no longer needed to fight with others, to strive to get ahead, for He knew God’s blessing. Rather than seeking to snatch from his brother, he now seeks to bless him for he knows God has dealt graciously with him (33:11).
How can we learn to trust God is working for our good? How can we trust Him so that we don’t feel we have to fight for everything? We can know this because we have seen our saviour fight to get God’s blessing for us. Jesus endured a night of wrestling with God in prayer and knew the only way he could lift the curse from us and give us God’s blessing was through enduring the cross. Jesus fought for us, to secure God’s eternal blessing for us. The apostle Paul reassures us “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32).
Our Psalm for today reassures us “the LORD is near to all who call on him.” (Psalm 145:18). Call to God, cling to Him, lean on Him, allow Him to fight for you. You may need to learn to go at a slower pace, but what a comfort to know Him fighting for us rather than against us. What a help to know that our weakness makes Him draw nearer to us as we lean more on Him.
Light and Momentary Troubles 
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