Excerpt from 52 Weeks of Pursuit, Vol. 1
Ever face a time of extreme “aloneness?”
When we left Jacob in Genesis 31 in yesterday’s reading, he had finally rid himself of his adversary, Laban. As chapter 32 begins, he has to concern himself with an even greater adversary—his own brother, Esau, who had threatened to take his life twenty years earlier.
Before Jacob can be reconciled with his brother, however, he first needed to be reconciled with his God. Notice that 32:24 says that “Jacob was left alone.” Many times God is most at work in our lives when we feel most alone. That night Jacob wrestled all night with the “man” who is the “angel” of Jehovah in the Old Testament, the Lord Jesus Christ. God brought Jacob to this place of aloneness because He wanted to break him. God wanted Jacob to cry uncle, as it were, or in the words of Galatians 2:20, “Not I, but Christ.” The key was getting Jacob to face who and what he really was.
God asked Jacob his name in Genesis 32:27 (obviously knowing it full well!), so that he would have to say, “I am Jacob.” Or, in other words, so he would have to admit, “I am a schemer. I am a deceiver. I am a liar.” Once Jacob admits his name, God graciously changes it! Jacob (“supplanter”) becomes Israel (“God prevails”) signifying one who has “power with God and men” (32:28). Verse 31 indicates that by the time this significant night was over, God had given Jacob the dawn of a new day. He not only had a new name, but a new walk. For the rest of Jacob’s life, he would walk with a limp.
Interestingly though, as chapter 33 begins, he is not living up to his new name and his new position with God. He is called Jacob, not Israel, and it says that he “lifted up his eyes,” indicating that he is not walking by faith, but by sight. He becomes a classic illustration of believers in Christ who are given a new name (Acts 11:26; Rev. 3:12) and a new position (Phil. 3:15; Eph. 1:4), yet don’t live up to who they are “in Christ.” Chapter 33 finds Jacob, despite his tremendous calling, continuing his scheming, his lying, and his patterns of disobedience. Though he has the mark of God on his life, he is walking like the man he used to be before his life-changing encounter with God. That’s why Ephesians 4:22–24 tells us, “That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.