Living in the Spirit
August 1, 2017
Scripture Reading: Genesis 32:22-31
The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, ‘Let me go, for the day is breaking.’ But Jacob said, ‘I will not let you go, unless you bless me.’ So he said to him, ‘What is your name?’ And he said, ‘Jacob.’ Then the man said, ‘You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.’ Then Jacob asked him, ‘Please tell me your name.’ But he said, ‘Why is it that you ask my name?’ And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, ‘For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.’ The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.
Jacob dealt with a displaced hip; Paul had his thorn in the flesh. Struggling with God is not for the faint of heart. Jacob did whatever was best for Jacob; Paul claimed never to break rules. They each came face to face with God to learn who and what they were made of and called to be. Jacob became the father of twelve tribes forming the nation of Israel; Paul planted and grew Christ’s church where rules became etched with loving considerations.
We all fall somewhere along the continuum of Jacob to Paul. Created by the same God and gifted with God’s spirit, we absorb the environment within which we live and have our being. We inherit the ways of our ancestors and past the good and the bad of our learnings to our descendants. Our goal is always to hold on to and nurture to good. Sometimes we are so encrusted with the bad we think it is right when it is not. How do we rid ourselves of those things that clutter our lives and prevent us from fully being the persons God created us to be? We too must wrestle with God.
There seems to be a lot of fear accompanied by hate in our land today. Rather than welcome strangers, we tremble in fear of them even knowing they were created in the same image of God we were. Fear and hate are not of God who is love. Jacob did not know what to expect when he limped away from his encounter with the Holy, but he moved ahead prepared to reconcile with the brother he had cheated. We too need to hold tightly to God and not let God go until we are blessed to take the love of God with us wherever God calls us to go and do whatever God calls us to do.
Prayer: God of Justice and Mercy, open our eyes to that which separates us from you, make us whole so we can pass the good forward for future generations rather than the bad. Amen.
*See Acts 9