These were Jacob’s hands, gripped tightly here during a moment that was his most desperate yet perhaps most glorious.

    These were the hands that grabbed the heel of Esau, the ones that supplanted his twin brother. These were the hands that prepared the red stew to barter for his brother’s birthright. These were the hands that had worn the kids’ skins to fool his elderly father into giving him his brother’s blessing. These also were the hands that had built the altar at Bethel, the hands that had lifted the heavy rock off of the water well for his beloved Rachel’s flock. These were the hands that had folded in prayer, in diligent and heart-felt petition to the God who had chosen him.

    These were the hands that struck agreements with Laban for his daughters. These were the hands that toiled 20 years for another man primarily because of his love for one woman. These were the hands that worked unto prosperity, and that pointed the way for his family to move into the land God had promised him.

    And now these were the hands that were gripped tightly–wrestling with God.

    The story of Jacob is detailed in Genesis, and it alternately comforts and confounds. For while it is easy to look upon many of Jacob’s decisions and actions with contempt, and even to wonder why God would so favor such a man, it is equally a reassurance to realize that the same God who extended grace to Jacob is the same God who extends us ours.

    Just as with Jacob, our hands have performed both sin and sacrifice.

    Yet what are we to learn from the famous episode of Genesis 32, in which Jacob wrestles with God and testifies afterward that it indeed was God he had seen? There are many interpretations of the encounter. Some scholars believe that the Man contending with Jacob was the pre-incarnate Christ. Others ascribe Jacob’s "opponent" simply angel status. Others still suggest the passage is figurative and that Jacob wrangled with God only in prayer.

    Respected scholar F.B. Meyer asserts that there is no reason to deny that this was a literal contest. It would have been just as possible for the Son of God to physically wrestle with Jacob as it was for Him to offer Thomas His hands after His resurrection, Meyer writes. Remember the physical fact that Jacob limped afterward, touched on his hip because he refused to quit striving. Mustn’t there be a real fight to occasion a real injury?

    "But, in any case, the outward wrestling was only a poor symbol of the spiritual struggle that convulsed the patriarch’s soul," Meyer writes. "Has not ‘this man’ who wrestled with Jacob found you out? Have you not felt a holy discontent with yourself? Have you not felt that certain things, long cherished and loved, should be given up, though it should cost you blood? These convulsive throes, these heaven-born strivings, these mysterious workings–are not of man, or of the will of the flesh, but of God. It is God who works in you, and wrestles with you. Glory be to Him for His tender patience, interest, and love!"

    Jacob is listed in the Hall of Faith of Hebrews 11. He was a prayerful man who, despite his many failings, weaknesses, and subsequent sorrows, was elected and loved of God. (Malachi 1:2; Romans 9:10-13) And he was the father of the Jewish race, through whom all the nations of the earth have been blessed in the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

    In fact, the nation of Israel received its name from Jacob, whom God renamed "Israel," meaning "he struggles with God," after their encounter. Today, writes Bible teacher Oswald Chambers, God invites us not to wrestle with Him but before Him.

    "Don’t become a cripple by wrestling with the ways of God, but be someone who wrestles before God with the things of this world, because ‘we are more than conquerors through Him,’" Chambers writes. "We don’t have to fight or wrestle with God, but we must wrestle before God with things. Beware of lazily giving up. Instead, put up a glorious fight and you will find yourself empowered with His strength."