Some encounters with God don’t leave you stronger. They leave you limping. And that is exactly the point. Jacob crossed the Jabbok with everything he owned. He crossed back with nothing but a new name and a broken hip. This is the story of what it costs to meet God face-to-face and why it’s worth it.
“That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female servants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23 After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. 24 So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. 25 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. 26 Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.” But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” 27 The man asked him, “What is your name?” “Jacob,” he answered. 28 Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel,because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”29 Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.” But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there. 30 So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.” 31 The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel,and he was limping because of his hip. 32 Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the tendon attached to the socket of the hip, because the socket of Jacob’s hip was touched near the tendon.” (Genesis 32 v 22-32)
The struggle for the Presence cost Jacob everything he thought defined him. It cost him his name; he became Israel, and it cost him his power; he became lame.
It was there alone at the Jabbok, that he wrestled with God through the night. It was there that God touched him in such a way that he would walk with a limp for the rest of his life. And there he was given a new name. Jacob the supplanter, the one who grasps and schemes, became Israel, the one whom God will strive for. In the morning, this man started a new life, changed and walking awkwardly, the limp a living reminder that God had touched his soul.
He named that place Peniel, the face of God, for that is what he had experienced and survived.
To know that God has looked into our souls and, in His love, has spared us, this is true brokenness.
There is nothing stronger than someone who has been made lame by God. Some Church communities are never the same again because of a message, a worship moment, a weeping, a salvation, a healing, a restoration, a relationship made whole. They have seen and been, and they can never return.
They have nothing left to prove and nothing more to fear. The old fight has gone. The old fire has been put out. The old aggression has been laid to rest. Within there is an emptiness now that only God can fill, an emptiness reserved for His Presence alone.
Nowhere is this transformation more visible, or more tested, than in our relationships. We may start out as a deceiver, holding onto the heel of a brother. But it doesn’t have to end that way.
The Church today must know a Jabbok experience, the place of surrender, leading to a Peniel experience, the face of God. In the Jabbok, we start wrestling until He touches us. In the Peniel, we stop looking at what is in His hands, and we pursue His face to know Him intimately.
We can let go of deceptive ways and channel the same fierce strength to hold on to God instead. He will touch us. He will break us. He will reshape our lives. Broken for Jesus.
Missions Paul 