Always intrigued by Jacob's wrestling match with 'the angel,' I was interested in Chaim Bentorah's deeper investigation into the Hebrew terminology for this account*. I had always felt that Jacob was really wrestling with himself over his own character and future. Or, even more so, with God's will for his life over his own.
These wrestling matches do, indeed, leave you scarred. But so did Jesus' Gethsemane battle. And His was cosmic, its outcome affecting all of us now and for eternity. Ours, too, obviously on a much smaller scale, can affect the lives of many, including our own family. Decades ago I faced my own individual whirlwind with deep implications for my family's very existence, not to mention the impact on future relationships of all kinds. At the time, I knew I was in the midst of a huge personal decision about which way my life would go, but I had no idea how far-reaching its implications.
Beth Moore challenges us to see battle scars of various kinds as marks of our love for God, rather as objects of self-pity in which we wallow. Even now, as we wrestle on a day-to-day basis with our Lord's command to forgive, or with letting go of offenses, or with choosing His will over our own in any form, the scars of these wrestling matches, whether small skirmishes or all-out war, are invisible signs of our deep love and commitment to Him and His ways. They may be invisible to others, but they are not to Him. He touches their puckered skin with tender awareness of what it took for us to choose life, which is ultimately what we're doing when we choose His will over our own.
That's what Jesus did, and the life he wrought for us is beyond reckoning. In the smallest corners of our world, let's pray for God's grace to be like Him....
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Genesis 32
1 Thessalonians 1:5-7
Hebrews 6:11-13
*Hebrew Word Study: Revealing the Heart of God; Study 22
Amen
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