Wrestling with God, Pt. 1

Jacob didn’t meet God until he left Isaac’s house. He was on his way to Laban to find himself a wife, far from the anger of his brother.

There, on a stop over night, he saw a ladder with angels ascending and descending. This place he declared as the house of God, because God had been there and he hadn’t perceived it. This is a picture of God’s previenent grace, which goes before us to make a way for us to experience God even when we’re not looking for him.

After sanctifying the place and dubbing it “Bethel,” he moved on to Laban’s house. This house, though he found his true love, was one of hard work and blessing in spite of Laban’s abuse. Maybe the abuse was even because of the blessing that Jacob experienced. I believe Jacob had experienced God at Bethel, but here his character was challenged and sharpened by the circumstances presented to him. Eventually though, like David leaving Saul, Jacob had to also flee from Laban to find his own destiny, because his father-in-law would never permit him to come into his own. Laban even still called his adult daughters and Jacob’s children his own property.

Now humbled, and again facing his brother Esau, he spends the night alone once again in the wilderness, but this time, he is not visited by a dream, but by God in the form of an angel and he begins to wrestle with Jacob. There is destiny in the balance here. There is future in the balance here. There is identity in the balance here. What and who Jacob will be is decided in the midst of this wrestling…