And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day...And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved. Genesis 32:26 and 30
I have known Jesus as my Savior since I was a little girl. I remember the day I invited Him into my heart. At that very moment I was His, and He was mine; yet I make a confession, I have wrestled with God most of my life. It has only been in my older age that I have obtained perfect, serene peace about life, death, and the will of God on earth.
Jacob wrestled with an angel or by some accounts with God, one time. It was a wrestling match that lasted all through the night until the sun began to rise. God could have annihilated Jacob in one blow, yet He only put his hip out of joint. He spared him to bless him as the father of the Israel nation. God was fulfilling His perfect plan through Jacob’s lineage.
I too have been in a wrestling match. In my heart, I knew His gift of salvation which brings me to His eternal kingdom, yet I was seeing things in such an earthly temporal way. So on my knees in my closet, I was asking God to reveal himself to me.
Day by day, little by little, God began showing me His love on an entirely new level, on a level higher than my mind could have ever imagined. I was beginning to see His blood in a different light. He illuminated the dark places to reveal that His sacrifice was not only an act of love; but He showed me the eternal God of the Universe, being love. I had been defining His love to fit inside my luggage of conclusions. I would open this valise to others, but it only held the dimensions of the specific capacity of my suitcase. It never seemed to fit within its confines, thus the wrestling match.
Why did I think His grace was limited by actions in a specific space of time? God through His message knocked my spiritual hip out of joint, to bring me to His peaceful throne. This was such a freeing experience, and at that moment, the wrestling stopped.
Because my vision of God had changed, so had my view of my enemy. I could now see them, and myself, also an enemy, through the lens of Christ. I was free to love all of us unconditionally. I could see us with pity; we are all pawns of Satan. I quit fighting to make God fit within the confining box of my doctrines. I had been freed from thinking I knew the truth, to trusting that truth. I had been freed from my flawed judgement, to to see the enormous grace and mercy of God. He pulled me out of my bondage of conscious circumspection, to peek into the incalculable realm of eternity, to let me glimpse God’s love, love way beyond all worldly margins.
I could not see all, as it was too overwhelming for me to grasp. Exactly how big was His gift of love? My conclusion: I will never fully know. This is the one time in which, “not knowing,” actually brought me peace. God blessed me when the wrestling stopped.
Thank you oh Lord for your immeasurable love. Amen
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