This moment was the climax of Jacob’s life. No surprise, he literally wrestled with God. Have you ever wrestled with God? Not physically, of course—Jacob’s the only person that has done that, and it’s astonishing that he lived to tell about it—but emotionally or mentally. Chances are we all have; we as a species are talented at turning our struggles with uncertainty into struggles with God.
The author of Genesis seemed to intentionally confuse us with this story. But to be fair, it came during a very confusing time in Jacob’s life. He had fought through his whole life by grasping and deceiving, but now, as he was about to meet up with his perhaps-vengeful brother Esau for the first time in many years, he was in a situation he couldn’t fight his way out of. He was without the sense of control over his own life that he had always enjoyed. And then suddenly he’s wrestling with God.
It seems likely that he was desperate to receive a blessing since he had received his only blessing thus far by stealing it. Was he angry with God for his situation? Was he begging him for some sense of security? Was he just scared out of his mind? Maybe all of these at once, hence his heightened confusion.
We often forget that it’s okay to wrestle God with our angry confusion. We will struggle anyway, and we will be overcome with uncertainty. But we will be better off bringing it to God than fighting alone, even if that means bringing it to him with a fight. Truthfully, he can take it. And he’s happy for us to prevail.
The importance of this part of Jacob’s story is emphasized by his name being changed. Jacob, which means “he grasps the heal,” is changed to Israel, which means “he struggled with God.” In other words, he went from fighting alone to fighting with God. And from then on, throughout the history of Israel’s descendants, God fought with them. God is willing to fight with us as well. Even when it doesn’t seem so, he’s on our team. We just need to bring our struggles and our wrestling to him rather than trying to fight alone.
