Wrestling with God

Then Jacob was left alone; and a Man wrestled with him until the breaking of day. - Genesis 32v24

I have to admit at the start that this is one of those passages that I really don’t totally understand. How can a man wrestle with God and prevail against God?

First, it is clear that Jacob wrestles with God because he says so a couple of verses later – “I have seen God’ he says. Like everything else in Scripture there is a debate. Did Jacob wrestle with Jesus? It does seem that most of the times where God appears in human form in the Old Testament He does so as a pre-incarnate Jesus.

Anyway, wrestling with God is an interesting concept. The fight went on all night. As morning approached we see the power of the heavenly opponent when He crippled Jacob for life by merely touching the joint of his thigh. It is obvious that the Divine Wrestler was in control the whole time.

Still the fight went on. Jacob would not let the Man go until he received a blessing. This may seem terribly presumptuous until we remember the woman who was praised for her persistence in prayer in the New Testament.

It is obvious that God was in control the whole time. He could have ended the fight any time He wanted. It seems that God honours and blesses persistence. There are times when we are going to need to wrestle with God in prayer. When that happens we need to learn, like Jacob, to hang on and stick with it.

In the end we will be blessed by knowing that God has answered and be able to rest in His will.