1 minute, 59 seconds
A high school wrestling match is six minutes long. I know this because, for four of my teenage years, I sat cross-legged on my cheerleading pillow right next to the wrestling mat where I got a close-up view of what it looked like for two men to twist, pull, and muscle their way through six minutes as each tried to take the other to the ground and hold him flat on his back for two seconds.
My cheerleading career involved watching intense, sweaty guys twisting and being contorted into inhuman shapes as they were forcibly taken to the ground by their opponents. I remember the vivid and unique sound of skin being forcibly removed as body parts were skidded unnaturally across the rubber wrestling mat.
I can also still recall the wide eyes of one underdog being smashed into the mat, one arm held behind him, only a few feet from my perch.
In Genesis 32, Jacob was in a wrestling match not for just six minutes but all night long! Much more significantly, Jacob wrestled not with another guy matched carefully to nearly his size and weight but with “a man” who most scholars believe was the pre-incarnate Christ Himself.
The Creator and Sustainer of everyone and everything came to grapple all night with Jacob. God condescended to confront and wrestle with Jacob alone in the desert.
I regularly saw wrestlers incur bruises, bloody noses, and skin peeled off their bodies as they skidded across the wrestling mat. In all my cheering days, I never saw anything like what happened to Jacob that night in the desert.
Genesis 32:25 tells us Jacob’s hip was wrenched out of the socket. This wasn’t done with the illegal wrestling maneuver of being lifted overhead and thrown to the ground. The Bible says Jacob’s hip was crippled with a mere touch. All powerful God used the touch of his hand to dislocate Jacob’s hip. What restraint! I drift as I imagine the physical damage that may have occurred had God chosen to use His whole hand! Or both hands!
Toward the end of Jacob’s all-night wrestling, after his hip was torn out of its socket, and with Jacob still holding on to his opponent, Jacob declared that he wouldn’t let go unless he got a blessing. Tenacious Jacob! Indeed endorphins were flowing but, his hip was dislocated!
I knew some feisty, unshakable wrestlers like Jacob: guys who, after the last whistle, didn’t quietly shake hands and walk away. Instead, they kept trying to wrestle after the match was over. Like the wrestlers I knew, Jacob resolved not to let this match end until he got blessed.
Jacob did get blessed. The Bible says he saw God face to face and yet his life was spared. As the sun rose on a new day, Jacob limped away from the wrestling match of his life, a transformed and blessed man.
God’s touch caused Jacob to limp, probably for the rest of his life. He was physically side-swiped but changed. I imagine every time Jacob bore weight on his affected side, he was reminded to walk in dependence upon God rather than his own schemes or strength.
In God’s kindness He serves us severe mercy, sometimes through affliction, to teach us how to live as ones who truly trust God.
There is always, always a purpose in our pain. The truth is, in our wrestling, God transforms us and blesses us. Hold on as He holds you. Don’t let go!
(photo credit: Unsplash, Chris Chow)