So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, "Let me go, for it is daybreak."
But Jacob replied, "I will not let you go until you bless me."
The man asked him, "What is your name?"
"Jacob ['he deceives']," he answered.
Then the man said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel ["he struggles with God"], because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome."*
It's time to grab God in a choke-hold and refuse to let go. To cling through the hours of darkness, though our hips be wrenched from our sockets, until the tentative wisps of dawn lighten the horizon. To declare, We will not let You go until You bless us. To be given a new name, a new identity--one not of shame, but of victory.
Then he blessed him there.
God will show up. It is a promise to those who seek Him with everything. It is a promise to those who never give up, regardless of the tests and taunts and trials, regardless of how distant God seems. It is a promise to those who choose to believe God even when the evidence of their eyes seems stacked against Him, who believe in the power of an invisible Spirit over a visible mountain.
So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, "It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared."
The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip.
God will come. He will mess us up. After we encounter Him face to face, our walk will never be the same.
*All italics quoted from Genesis 32:24-31.
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