face to face with Esau

It's easier for me to be vulnerable with the Lord when I am at my end physically. It's easier for me to be vulnerable with others when I'm at my end too... after all - when I'm exhausted or hungry I'm certainly more likely to let my real feelings show through in a less tamed way than at other times. With God, it's always after my run or today when I finished my workout and started my stretches that I felt my body give in to the need to tell Him all things... to tell him my fear, my hurt, my worry, my insecurity. Tears and sweat mix together so you don't know what is what, but physically and mentally and spiritually and emotionally, I emptied.

God is not afraid of any of those things we would tell Him in those moments. We would rather come controlled, with all of the things we need to solve the problem and then tack God on the end of it. After all, if we can't solve our problems ourselves, that's a little bit disconcerting. But we sometimes forget that even if we have everything we need, we will still need God in it no matter what - He will be in it no matter what anyway, because He is in all things. Christ is preeminent, we read in Colossians 1: "For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities -- all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together."

In Genesis 32, Jacob was about to come face-to-face with Esau, for the first time in many years since the time that Esau had threatened Jacob's life. Jacob had no way of knowing if the threat persisted or if things had changed in the meantime, and his internal struggle is tangible reading through this chapter. Jacob sent messengers, and he divided his people, and he prepared hundreds of animals as a present for Esau. He prepared all of the things, and he uses all of his logic and all of his resources, and still there came a point where he was alone before God, and he wrestled.

The way we wrestle with God reveals where we have placed our identity. If we come before Him boldly, believing and claiming His promises and pleading those with Him, it is very different than if we come fighting for our own way and fearful of the outcome. I have wrestled both ways and sometimes they are intermixed and it's hard to tell why you're wrestling exactly. Very hard to tell.

In a recent sermon, it was mentioned that years prior, when Isaac had asked Jacob his name, Jacob had lied. This time, in this fight, with the stakes equally high or maybe even higher... Jacob answers the same question, "What is your name?", truthfully: "And he said, "Jacob"". Is it that Jacob had learned the limitations of his ability to act, to change the trajectory of events, and to impact his future? Had he realized, after so many other tumultuous life events, that no matter what -- God can be neither skirted around nor hopped over? Jacob was Jacob, and God was God. He was settled, finally, in his identity before the Creator of the Universe. And no matter how much manipulation or power Jacob could wield, the truth still remained that God Is the Authority?

And yet it seemed that Jacob, in learning his place before God, was able to take refuge and find peace in that. Knowing the ability of God to act in his life did not push Jacob away, or discourage him, or make him fearful. Rather it made him more bold, far more bold -- bold enough to wrestle with that very same God, seeking a blessing that he knew, at last, could come from no place other than the Author of blessing. In spite of all that he had done to ensure his personal security when he came face-to-face with his brother, he learned and re-learned here at Mahanaim that it is God who holds all things together.

Jacob was limping because of his hip when the "sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel"; his physical strength had been depleted and it was in that moment that he found himself actually face-to-face with his fear. Had he met Esau before the wrestling, perhaps he would have felt like he could find it within himself to control the situation without need of God. But it was after, when he was limping, that he met his fear and his future... and there he found that God had gone before him.

God does not ask us to come before Him with thousands of animals or a sacrifice to prove ourselves, because He knows our hearts... and He simply asks us to, in brokenness and humility, acknowledge who He is, and who we are, and take our proper place before Him:

“With what shall I come before the Lord,

and bow myself before God on high?

Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,

with calves a year old?

Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,

with ten thousands of rivers of oil?

Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,

the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”

He has told you, O man, what is good;

and what does the Lord require of you

but to do justice, and to love kindness,

and to walk humbly with your God?"

Micah 6:6-8.