Good Friday weekend right up until Easter day was a very dreary affair this year with the weather playing spoilsport and it raining the proverbial cats and dogs without a break the entire duration of the 3 days. To top it I had the entire weekend off, but sadly nothing much could be done with the weather so bad and also with my parents busy with their own engagements, my sister busy with her church activities, and my wife attending to her mother. All of this meant I was all alone at home most of the time and had my good old system for company, which certainly was a bright spark in an otherwise very boring and dreary long Easter weekend. Ah the panacea for loneliness, who will find it?
Coming back to Easter, the message at our New Life Assembly Of God Church was certainly great, but I heard another message on Easter day which though not related to Easter itself still spoke to my heart and I am sure there are lessons to be learnt for everyone from this beautiful message. The message that I am referring to was delivered by Joyce Meyer and it is titled “Interrupting Satan’s Plan” and the message spoke about Jacob wrestling with God and winning and the scripture is taken from Genesis 32:22-30 and follows below.
Wrestling with God!
Verse 22 And he arose that night and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven sons, and crossed over the ford of Jabbok.
Verse 23 He took them, sent them over the brook, and sent over what he had.
Verse 24 Then Jacob was left alone; and a Man wrestled with him until the breaking of day.
Verse 25 Now when He saw that He did not prevail against him, He touched the socket of his hip; and the socket of Jacob’s hip was out of joint as He wrestled with him.
Verse 26 And He said, “Let Me go, for the day breaks.” But he said, “I will not let You go unless You bless me!”
Verse 27 So He said to him, “What is your name?” He said, “Jacob.”
Verse 28 And He said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel; for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed.”
Verse 29 Then Jacob asked, saying, “Tell me Your name, I pray.” And He said, “Why is it that you ask about My name?” And He blessed him there.
Verse 30 So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: “For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.”
Verse 31 Just as he crossed over Penuel the sun rose on him, and he limped on his hip.
Verse 32 Therefore to this day the children of Israel do not eat the muscle that shrank, which is on the hip socket, because He touched the socket of Jacob’s hip in the muscle that shrank.
In this story it is interesting to note that in Verse 24 it says that a Man wrestled with Jacob until the breaking of the day, but by the time we come to Verse 28 we learn it was God and He says “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel; for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed.”
Now to the interesting part. How many of us ever wrestle with God? How many of us are still struggling with that sickness because we are the ones not doing anything about it? How many of us are still facing financial difficulty and lack because we are the ones not doing anything about it? How many of us have ever gotten alone with God and said like Jacob in Verse 26 “I will not let You go unless You bless me!” Are we that hungry or desperate for God to bless us that we tell God that unless You bless me I am not going to let go.
I have found in my life that persistent asking prayer works when nothing else works. There are situations when nothing seems to be going right and even heaven seems to be silent. In such situations I have found that its works best when I get stubborn and start praying in tongues for a breakthrough or a solution to the problem. I will keep this up as long as I can and then take a break for a while and after that break I will get back to praying for the problem again in tongues. Obviously, I will again take a break when I am tired or need a break only to come back to praying for the same thing in tongues and this is something I will keep up till I have breakthrough in my Spirit i.e. an assurance of God’s answer in my Spirit and then I go ahead and stop praying about it and sure enough the manifestation of what I have been praying for comes along very quickly. It is a very good lesson I have learnt about prayer that the breakthrough needs to come in the Spiritual realm and with God first before it is manifested in the physical realm. The other lesson well learnt is that for breakthrough to come you will need to get aggressive and persistent and pray with an attitude of I am not letting go God till I get what I want. I hope today that I am able to pass on the importance of these two lessons to you.
Once you can add wrestling with God to your prayer life then there is no turning back whatsoever. Every mountain will have to move and be cast into the sea and you will have breakthrough into the supernatural with God and even heaven will say yes to all that you desire. Come on in and begin to wrestle with God like Jacob and even God will crown you Prince and Victor over every situation in your life.
