Wrestling Instead of Resting

Attitudes Shaped by Grace | Day 24

“So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak.” (Genesis 32:24, NIV)

Good morning. Some of us woke up already tired, and not because of what happened yesterday. We are tired from everything we are still trying to hold together: the situation at work that has not resolved, the family member who has not come around, the diagnosis that has not improved, the plan we have run through our minds so many times we could recite it in our sleep. Our jaws were clenched before our feet found the floor. This morning is for us.

Exhaustion does not always come from suffering well. Often it comes from fighting. We did not cause most of what landed on us. But a second weight often arrives on top of the first, and that one we add ourselves. We spend our energy trying to fix what only God can fix, control what was never ours to control, and manage timing and outcomes that belong to him. We lie awake rehearsing the conversation. We make the plan, revise the plan, and make another plan. We are not resting in God’s care. We are fighting inside it.

Fighting What Only God Can Fix

Jacob knew that kind of night. He was on his way to meet the brother he had cheated years earlier, afraid for his life and for his family. He sent everyone across the river ahead of him. “So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak.” (Genesis 32:24, NIV). Scripture tells us how the night ended. “When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, ‘Let me go, for it is daybreak.’ But Jacob replied, ‘I will not let you go unless you bless me.’” (Genesis 32:25-26, NIV).

Look closely at that touch. One touch was enough to wrench Jacob’s hip out of place. The strength to end the match was there the whole night, and it was held back. The man let Jacob strain and hold on until morning. By daybreak Jacob was wounded and still holding on, and what came out of him was not a demand to win but a plea to be blessed. Jacob named that place Peniel, because he had seen God face to face and his life had been spared. The blessing he received was not something his own strength had forced out of God. It came from the one who had held back his strength all night.

Most of us know the first half of that night well. We know the straining and the refusal to let go. Here is what our grip reveals. We have trusted our own management of the situation more than the God who holds the situation. We have believed that if we loosen our hold for even a moment everything will fall apart, as if the outcome depended on us and not on him. That belief is heavy, and it is not true.

Job shows us what God can produce in a believer when the worst arrives. Job lost his children, his livestock, and his servants in a single day. He tore his robe, shaved his head, fell to the ground in worship, “and said: ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised.’” (Job 1:21, NIV). Job did not say that because he was a stronger man than we are. He said it because God had given him faith, and faith knows where everything came from and where everything is going. Nothing in that sentence is Job taking charge. All of it is Job letting the Lord be the Lord.

The One Who Let Go for Us

Into our uproar God speaks one short sentence. “He says, ‘Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.’” (Psalm 46:10, NIV). The psalm that holds this verse describes nations in uproar and kingdoms falling. God did not wait for the noise to stop before he said be still. He said it into the noise. Being still is not doing nothing. We still go to work, still care for the people in our home, still make the call we have been avoiding. Being still is trusting that the one who holds the outcome is God, and we are not. The result does not rest on our grip.

Somewhere in a long season of fighting, prayer can start to feel like one more thing we tried that did not work. We prayed, the situation did not change, and we quietly went back to managing it ourselves. Jesus knew that would happen to us. “Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.” (Luke 18:1, NIV). Prayer offered through gritted teeth is still prayer. Prayer that sounds more like Jacob at daybreak than Job in his worship is still heard. We keep praying because God keeps listening, not because our persistence earns anything from him.

Here is the heart of this morning. We fight because we do not want to let go. Jesus Christ let go completely. He had already said exactly how his death would come. “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.” (John 10:18, NIV). No one took his life. He laid it down, freely and fully, for every person who has ever clenched a fist against the will of God, which is every one of us. Then he took it up again on the third day. Every night we have spent fighting what only God can fix is forgiven, because Jesus did what we would not do, and he did it in our place.

That is what makes a loosened grip possible. The Holy Spirit, working through this Word, is teaching us to turn our wrestling into prayer. When we catch ourselves rehearsing the plan at two in the morning, we can say the plan to God instead of to ourselves. When we feel our hands tightening around the thing we cannot fix, we can open them in prayer and hand it to the one who can. We will not do this perfectly. Jacob walked away from that night limping, carrying in his own body the mark of the God who had met him and spared him. The Spirit is giving us the same reminder. The hands that were clenched before breakfast have already been covered by the hands that were stretched out on the cross. Jesus Christ laid down his life so that we could stop fighting and start resting in him, and he has made that rest ours.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, I confess that much of my exhaustion has come from fighting inside your care instead of resting in it. I have tried to fix what only you can fix, and I have trusted my own plans more than your promises. Forgive me for the sake of Jesus Christ, who laid down his life of his own accord and took it up again for me.

Lord Jesus, thank you for the gift of the Holy Spirit, who turns my wrestling into prayer. When I lie awake rehearsing what I cannot control, bring your Word to my mind and your name to my lips. Teach me to be still and to know that you are God. Loosen my grip on the people and outcomes I keep trying to manage, and let any limp I carry remind me that you have spared me. Hear every prayer I have offered through gritted teeth, and keep me praying. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.

Thank you for reading today. Whatever you set down this morning, the Lord was holding it before you let go, and he will still be holding it tonight. Tomorrow we look at suffering itself and what God does with it, because nothing he allows in our lives is wasted. Until then, rest in him.

To God be the glory.

Pray, praise, and give thanks, for God is good and His mercy endures forever.

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