Broadcast
Wrestling With God - Part 1
Genesis 32:24-25
02/26/2024
24 And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with
him until the breaking of the day.
25 When the man saw that he did not prevail against
Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob's hip
was put out of joint as he wrestled with him.
(ESV)
Shortly after Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity in
313, the bishops of the Church published a list of readings for
each Sunday. The Gospel for the Second Sunday in Lent was the
story of the Syrophoenecian woman who sought Jesus' help for her
daughter. For a while, Jesus ignored her prayer. He said ``it
is not good to take the children's bread and feed it to the
dogs.'' Yet the woman replied, ``Yes, Lord, but the dogs eat the
crumbs which fall from the master's table.''[1]
The faithful followers of God persevere in their prayers in
spite of God's seeming silence. Jacob, the third Patriarch of
the Jewish religion, fled from his father-in-law, and was
approaching his hostile brother. He had sent his wives and
possessions across the Jabbok River and waited for the dawn.
``And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the
breaking of the day. When the man saw that he did not prevail
against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob's hip was put
out of joint as he wrestled with him.''
While fervently praying to God for forgiveness and
deliverance, Jacob also wrestled with a stranger. We will see in
the coming days that Jacob physically wrestled with God, even as
he spiritually wrestled with Him in prayer.
May our Lord give us the perseverance of faith to firmly
trust in God for all things. Amen.
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1. See Matthew 15:21-28