Your own wrestling match

10Jun
Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.
-Genesis 32:24 

 “… I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.’
-Genesis 32:30


When Jacob wrestled with the man in the wilderness he was on his way to meet his brother Esau after many years absence. Jacob was concerned about the meeting because he had cheated Esau out of his birthright when their father Isaac died. I would say that Jacob’s conscience bothered him – and rightly so.


In the middle of the night Jacob couldn’t sleep and wrestled with God until daybreak.


I have had similar experiences in the middle of the night – especially when I am being confronted by my conscience (read “God”).


How many of us actually embrace this opportunity to struggle with God like Jacob did? Instead, we may be afraid and try to avoid our wrestling match with God/our conscience. So, perhaps, we then sedate ourselves (with pills, liquor, denial, argument) hoping that we can sleep (both literally and figuratively).


Yet Jacob’s example reminds us that there is holiness and great benefit from these midnight encounters with God: “… I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.”


Musical Reflection - We Are Climbing Jacob's Ladder - Bernice Reagon


Dear Lord God, come search me out in those long, lonely hours of the night. Keep me company and mightily wrestle with me so that I may be made whole by the power of your love and presence. Amen.

Love

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