They hadn’t learned from their history. The life of their patriarch Jacob was still teaching them however they were not listening nor learning.
“In the womb he grasped his brother’s heel; as a man he struggled with God. He struggled with the angel and overcame him; he wept and begged for his favour. He found him at Bethel and talked with him there –” Hosea 12:3-4
From the womb Jacob was deceptive to his brother Esau and even when they were grown men Jacob stole the birthright from his brother for the price of a meal. Esau was angry and Jacob fled across the Jabbok River. Esau continued to chase after him.
So Jacob did what he always had done. He tried to solve it himself. He sent gifts and animals across the Jabbok to appease his brother. Manipulative ways can stay within our characters all our lives. He then sent his family. He was then alone. At Jabbok.
It was there he wrestled with God through the night. It was there God touched him in such a way that he would forever walk with a limp. And it was there he was given a new name. Jacob the supplanter became Israel the ‘one whom God will strive for’. In the morning this man started a new life. He was a changed man and he walked awkwardly but it reminded him that God had touched his soul. He named that place Peniel meaning ‘the face of God’ for that is what he experienced and survived.
If only Hosea’s people had learnt from Jacob and sought after God.
If only the Church today knew a Jabbok experience leading to a Peniel experience.
A discipleship check:
- Spiritual transformation is needed throughout our whole life and the battle is always within our soul.
- The Jabbok experience is to get alone with God and to hand over the control of our life to Him who will strive for us.
- The Peniel experience is to stop looking at what is in the hands of others that we want, or what is in our hands to sort things ourselves, or even what is in God’s hands to bless, and in that place to pursue the face of God and to know Him intimately.
We must learn from the past.
Missions Paul 