Wrestling For Control With God
My son, Pastor Luke Isaacson, now lives in Townsville, Australia with his wife and two sons. But once upon a time he was the Fairbanks North Star Borough 85 pound take down champ. “Wrestling was great,” he says, “it taught me a lot about how to overcome, strategize and fight to win.”
Although his career was short, he’s learned something else about wrestling and life: Life’s struggles can be God’s way to let you wear yourself out – to get to the end of yourself.
In a recent sermon, Pastor Luke spoke about one of the most fascinating stories in the Bible. Jacob wrestled God!
Genesis 32:24 says, “So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak.”
We like to think our heroes of the faith were perfect, but the reality is that they model for us what the Apostle Paul called, “the perfecting of your faith.”
Jacob was a manipulator, a deceiver, a coward, a self-reliant conman and his whole life was about CONTROL.
God has plans to transform this man’s life—just as he has plans to transform your life, and mine. But first, he has to help us surrender control.
Jacob was Afraid. He faced the real possibility of death. His brother Esau, who he had swindled, was marching toward him with an army of 400 men. And this is when God wrestles with him.
Jacob was confronted directly at the area of his identity. All his life he lived with an illusion that he was in control.
“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” (Genesis 32:25).
God allowed Jacob to strain, to think he had leverage. Then, after wrestling ALL night, with one touch, the illusion of control is gone for Jacob.
God wasn’t trying to defeat Jacob but transform him. You can’t have Jesus when you’re clinging to everything else in this world.
Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”
But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless m.” (Genesis 32:26).
Jacob stopped wrestling and began clinging—I won’t let go until you bless me: Jacob went from control to dependence. You don’t win by trying to overpower God or control your circumstances. You win simply by surrendering to God.
Jacob, the manipulator, the controller, received a new name. God named him “Israel” because he wrestled with God and overcame. Yet Jacob was left with a limp. Why? Because God reminded him to always stay dependent upon Him.
Are you exhausted because you’re trying to control everything in your life?
Today, pray to God, not as a last resort but as a first priority, “God, I don’t know how this is going to work out and I’m exhausted and anxious but I surrender my illusion of control and I’m going to cling to you until you bless me, until you resolve this.” Keep clinging!
Listen to the complete sermon by Pastor Luke Isaacson on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5vKdjanOrLUrMZP0WrSzG2?si=FkuOhNFoQwavo8ucmUeQHA
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