When Jacob becomes Israel

The Lord tells Jacob, “Go back to the land of your fathers and to your relatives, and I will be with you.” So Jacob runs away from Laban, only to have Laban pursue him. After that was resolved, he finds that his angry brother Esau is coming to him with four hundred men. How many of us have chosen to finally obey God's plan for us, only to find trouble coming our way?

In great fear and distress Jacob divided the people who were with him into two groups, and the flocks and herds and camels as well. He thought, “If Esau comes and attacks one group, the group that is left may escape.”

Jacob prayed, “O God of my father Abraham, God of my father Isaac, LORD, you who said to me, ‘Go back to your country and your relatives, and I will make you prosper,’ I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness you have shown your servant. I had only my staff when I crossed this Jordan, but now I have become two camps. Save me, I pray, from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am afraid he will come and attack me, and also the mothers with their children. But you have said, ‘I will surely make you prosper and will make your descendants like the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted.’”

Jacob prayed for deliverance from his brother. Things seem to make a turn for worse when Jacob was injured that night.

That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female servants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions.
So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. 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.”
The man asked him, “What is your name?”
“Jacob,” he answered.
Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”
Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.”
But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there.
So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”
The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip.

That day, Jacob, who always depended on himself and whom God could not defeat, saw God face to face and was changed forever. He went limping into a confrontation with Esau, knowing that unless God steps in, all would be gone.

He is looking, not for people who believe they can, but for people who believe He can.

Alignment.

Alignment with God's plan. Sometimes, it really hurts, especially when crooked patterns which have set in are being straightened. But we need to trust that God knows what He is doing. He is doing it because at the end, it will be a lot better for us. We need to trust Him through the pain.