People say that once you leave home you can never return. That must have been Jacob’s thought the night before meeting the brother he’d cheated 20 years earlier (Genesis 32:22-32).
Jacob sent his family and his belongings ahead while he waited to see what would happen to his family. As he waited, the Bible says that Jacob wrestled with God face to face (Genesis 32:30).
This story makes me think about how much latitude God gave Jacob to fail and then to learn. The fact that Jacob wrestled all night says something about God’s patience with those whose failures are greater than their achievements.
Jacob wrestled with God, but didn’t fight against Him. There is a difference. God could have easily destroyed Jacob, pinning him to the ground with a simple whisper, never breaking the lull of the dewy night air. Instead, God engaged Jacob’s restless soul in a process of self-discovery and surrender.
By the time the sun rose over the middle-eastern horizon, God gave Jacob a new name, Israel, but Jacob had to yet embrace his new God-given identity.
God is ever patient with us. He respects our struggles and desires to change us by them. It’s in that transformation that we are best useful to Him.
The great English preacher Charles Spurgeon wrote, “Michelangelo understood so well the importance of his tools, that he always made his own brushes with his own hands and in this he gives us an illustration of the God of grace, who with special care fashions for Himself all true ministers.”
God gives us freedom to fail. If we could appreciate the fathomless patience God has in the process of surrender and change, it would silence us. It might carve within our hearts a willingness to allow others the room to fail and learn too. It would paint a thankfulness upon our hearts that others would see.
Count it all joy when you fall into various trials, know that the testing of your faith produces patience. Let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing (James 1:2-4).
Where Living Begins 