Everyday Gospel: A Daily Devotional Connecting Scripture to All of LifeSample

God will interrupt moments in our lives to recapture our hearts, to strengthen our faith, to bless us with his grace, and to instill in us, once again, our identity as his children.

Genesis 32 gives us the strangest wrestling match that has ever taken place. At first, it just seems weird and bizarre, but the more you examine the story, the more you realize what a gift and blessing the struggle was, and what a perfect picture it is for us today of how God meets us by his grace. Jacob is on his way home to Canaan after a twenty-year stay in Paddan-aram. But rather than being glad to be going home, he is terrified of the anger of his brother, Esau, who is on his way to meet him with four hundred men. Jacob is convinced this is not a celebratory greeting party, but the army of an angry man who wants vengeance. As fear would cause, Jacob is having a restless and sleepless night when a strange man shows up and begins to wrestle with him. At some point during the match, Jacob realizes he is wrestling with God and says he will not let go until God blesses him. God not only blesses him but leaves him with a new identity, Israel (“strives with God”). This is more than a name; it is a foreshadowing of the huge role Jacob will have in the plan of God.

It’s important that we pay attention to how God meets, blesses, and strengthens Jacob. It is a picture of how God’s grace often operates in our lives. In times of trouble, we think grace will come to us as a cool drink, a soft pillow, and a reassuring hug. We don’t expect God to interrupt times of trouble with more trouble because he loves us. But as Jacob is now wrestling with God, he is no longer thinking fearfully about Esau, his heart turns toward the Lord rather than escape from Esau, and what he longs for is blessing from his Lord.

God will use whatever he thinks is best to draw our hearts and minds to him, to cause us to cry out for the blessings of his grace, and to deepen in us a sense of what it means to be his children. In love, God will come to us and trouble our trouble, because that interruption is exactly what we need so we don’t lose our sense of who we are and what we have been blessed with as his children.

God’s grace comes to us in many different forms. God’s grace is not always comfortable. Sometimes the last thing we think we need is, in God’s hands, exactly what we need. God will wrestle with you, not to weaken and defeat you, but to leave you blessed, renewed, and strengthened, even if you limp away. No interruption is more important than divine interruptions. They are tools of the grace we need, delivered by a God who always knows the right time and always chooses the best way.

For further study and encouragement: Hebrews 12:3–11