You can copy a lot of things. You can ask AI to write and do many things in a fraction of the time that it used to take you. But the limp given by God, whatever form that takes, cannot be earned nor received through shortcuts.
“After Jacob came from Paddan Aram,he arrived safely at the city of Shechem in Canaan and camped within sight of the city. 19 For a hundred pieces of silver,he bought from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, the plot of ground where he pitched his tent. 20 There he set up an altar and called it El Elohe Israel.” (Genesis 33 v 18-20)
Jacob does not arrive at just any place. He arrives at Shechem, the place where the promises were first spoken over the land. Jacob’s arrival at Shechem is no coincidence. God has brought him back to the very place where it all began.
He is not running anymore. Jacob’s purchase is a declaration: I am here. I belong here.
He doesn’t say “El Elohe Abraham”, not borrowing his grandfather’s relationship with God. He doesn’t say “El Elohe Isaac”, not sheltering under his father’s faith. He says El Elohe Israel. This is not the nation; this is his new name. At some point, every person must move from “the God my parents knew” to “my God.” Jacob has crossed that threshold.
The name “Israel” was not given at a comfortable moment. It was given in the dark, in a struggle, at the cost of Jacob’s hip socket. The wound and the blessing are not opposites. They come together. And the altar names them both.
Jacob camped within sight of Shechem, and it is within sight of the city that he builds the altar. Faith, when it is real, cannot remain entirely private.
The altar is not built in the easy seasons. It is built on the far side of Jabbok, after the wrestling which led to the wound and a new name. The limp is not the defeat; it is the proof, and the altar stands as a testimony to that.
Missions Paul 