Jacob, limping out of Peniel, Pt. 4

Now comes the climax.

Laban, my father-in-law, alienated from me. I had wept when I found him, but now I moved against him, expanding my flocks at the expense of his, under the pretense of obedience and familiarity. Those years were hidden years, from the outside years of little action besides the slow accumulation of children. Hidden, I say, in that all the while my mind was in motion, my heart considering things, the God of my fathers in pursuit while I schemed. My schemes won much from Laban, slowly, carefully, taking with my secret ways what God brought.

I say pursuit, I have said it before, and I think it is an important word to consider. God is a pursuing God in the sense that where he lays his favor he acts. My life shows this plainly, being selected before birth to be over my brother, then God appearing in Bethel to assure me that he would be with me and bring me back safely to the land of my inheritance. These facts sit simply with God, facts stated by him, a certainty in him that transcends the experience of man. Man is a striving creature, a working creature, taking what he can with strength, or stealing it with deception. Men in general choose one of these two paths towards the acquisition of their wants, and in me, the circumstances of birth and inclination had made me a deceiver. This in itself is no different from thousands of men on the earth, and the same pattern will likely be repeated for infinity. There is no change for men, nothing new under the sun, except in the application of these things, which lays hold of every instrument available.

I hope these things are clear from my story, that they can be seen clearly in it. Men may seem to change according to the failure or prospering of their strength/deceptive works. But nothing can move them from these paths, for where the heart leads, man will follow, whatever path is required of him. All paths, they say, lead to destruction, meaning that no matter a man's course, he ends his days asleep in the dust. There is truth in the pragmatic grimness of this expression, for its evidence is everywhere. Men die, their works perish, all that they labor to build, or scheme to grasp, escapes eventually from their hands, even though they grip to the end. Men hope in vain for something different, those at least who can see the futility of their ways.

But pursuit! The ending of these days and ways can come by the intervention of a living principle, of a God of change and action. See that I was pursued, that the hope of my fathers was put in me by an initiating God. What was I when I was born? Conceived in sin, heir to the cursed flesh of my father Adam, of no value in the world, able to offer him nothing. And that was the pinnacle of my righteousness, for all the days of my life I have chased after the deadness of a fallen world, scheming, planning, taking, a sheen of faith upon it all! Yet to me these promises were made, over and against my unbelief, for I had no thought of them when I slept that night and saw the glory of the one who lives!

To be pursued is to be awakened, for the pursuit is also the call, a voice that summons, irresistably. When I heard that voice in that day, it was a summoning voice, a voice that brought to life that which was dead, and sat in my heart all the days of my long sojourn amongst Laban. All those days among him, in my heights and my depths, in the breaking of my heart and the shattering of my covers, the voice sat in my heart and called, called, and in my heart the resting upon it increased. Those days were pursuing days, the work of converting my soul unto him was long, but it was only as long as God needed for me, ignorant, unaware, thinking myself rested upon him when I was only incorporating him into the great schemes of my heart, the taking of what I needed.

Read the events of my life as a pursuit and you will understand! When Laban deceived me, it was God who worked through him, exposing to me the cruelty of my own heart. When I expanded my flocks at Laban's expense, it was God himself who did it. This work also shows the wisdom of God toward me (O Lord, who knows me, how perfectly did you pursue me!), allowing me to imagine my schemes successful, that somehow those strips of bark and milk were creating for me a vast flock. Lord, how patient you are with such a hard-hearted man! It was you who prospered my flock, not me, you who brought forth the speckled ones at the right time! See also that when Laban pursued me he shamed me, choosing to honor me, love me, bless me, when in my heart I was afraid and prepared to fight him.

Lord, I have known you, I have known you for a long time. When I remember all these things, from my days with Esau forward, I see the paths that you have taken with me have been perfect. But I see also the moments when I hung by a strand, when my faith was nearly broken, when you took me like a bruised reed and did not break me. Lord, all my days you have kept the wick burning, it is you who does this! Lord, what am I, to have these things done for me? Who am I that I am wanted? What have I done to deserve this? O Lord, how ugly my deceptions appear, unmasked now, uncovered, I see the heartlessness of them, the hatred of all men that is displayed there, to take what I want for myself, to own and dominate at the expense of all others, O Lord, how contrary to the self-giving, the compassion, the love, love, the great love of God, for that is what has taken me, chased me, nailed me down, overcome me! How gentle you have been with me, taking me through all things, patiently waiting for the day when you could purchase my soul for all time!

Lord, this is what you did last night, I know it, I see it. O God, you are my God now, no longer the God of my fathers, but the God of Jacob, the God of Israel (this new name, O Lord, to be a deceiver no longer!). I am yours, simply.

When I heard of Esau coming, I knew it was the end. The last time I had seen him he had sworn to kill me, and now, as I returned to my father at the command of God, he was coming. He will kill me with his four hundred men. I am powerless.

Powerless. Listen to that word, for it is the final step of this great pursuit, it is the climax of what God has done, and in doing it, he has completed it(never completed, but brought to fullness). For what remained in me, remaining still but now mastered by God, what remained in me was the pathways of the old man, the chosen ways of my deception. He who had won my affection, who I was determined to follow, who I claimed even, he saw the work that needed to be done, the work hidden deep in my heart hardened there by long experience, and so he exposed it. He took me and made me fully known, to myself and to him, and so in this burning he took my heart and made it free. Bound it was, in ways I did not recognize, ways unfamiliar to me, but which made it a slave, a slave to the necessity of its protection, a slave to its own independence, even as it hungered for dependence. O yes, I hungered for God, I desired him, but in the fear and pride of my broken heart, I could not come to him. So I had to be brought, the wrenching of the moment as painful as anything I have ever experienced, a pain I now carry in my hip as walk, limping out of Peniel.

We wrestled. He came to me as a man, he came and though he spoke no words, I knew what he wanted. He wanted in, he wanted those secret ways, and as man almost possessed I resisted. I responded instinctively, protectively, unwilling to let him take me, for though with my heart I wanted surrender, yet also in my heart there raged a terrible fear, and I saw that fear had been what drove me all the days of my life.

Fear was behind my deception, a terrible fear, a fear that grew as exposure was risked and experienced. Fear had driven me, had hidden me from all men, and though I was slowly giving myself to the one my father called his Fear, yet I knew (or he knew? We both knew in our wrestling) I could not give it up, I could not stop. I was no master of myself, whatever mastery there is an illusion. He wrestled with me, wrestled to take it, to have it, to break me down, to take my heart for himself, to own it, and my desires conflicted to, a man haunted, wanting and hating with the same tortured heart.

Who can fathom the ways of God? Could he not have overcome me in a second? But in the wisdom of his pursuit he modulated his strength perfectly, matching me so that neither of us gained the upper hand, wrestling for endless hours, all the while my heart was breaking, changing, being taken over. Then, when morning came, I still clung to him, exhausted now with a weariness I had never felt, and I felt a terrible pain in my hip. The man had touched it and it exploded with pain, popping out of place within me. Now I lay, broken, overcome, my strength failed, my emnity ended, yet still clinging to him, to God, to my maker and master, to my long pursuer.

I say I clung to him, for though he had long pursued me, now the pursuit completed and I clung to him. He had hunted me down and my opposition, having been broken, turned into something else. Now he was dear to me, sweet to me, I little understanding even what was going on in my heart, but now I clung to him, not to overcome him, but overcome and so loving. My heart subdued was no free in its offerings, seeking from this man (how did he come as a man? what shadows are there in this?) the assurance that the moment sang out to me. That long wrestle, the long contest of the night, begun fiercely but ending in my heart's love, my heart overcome and willing now. I asked him for blessing, to be blessed by the one who had taken me here and who now I had given myself to, the giving and taking mingling at some point in that long night.

See the perfection of his ways? I saw him and lived! What other moment would I have given myself to you, except in the moment where all other defenses were broken? Before I could offer myself to him, he had to first strip away all other things, all other heart-loves, and so he came to me this night, when I sit weak, going now as I am to almost certain death, but content in it now, my children already to be made into a great nation, certain also of his protection, his perfection, needing no longer to take for myself through strength or scheme what God has promised by his words. What can Esau do to the promises, or what can he do to me? I am God's now, his possession, his trophy, the prize of his long pursuit.

So I limp now, bearing in my body the reminder of my dependence, hoping now in his word, knowing that he is mine, and I am his. I have enough now to marvel all the days that remain at the depth of God's grace and the perfection of his wisdom. There is enough for me to sing of his great love for eternity! This is real, me, a man running, run down himself and taken! All this was done freely, had to be done freely, and in the observation of these things there is nothing but a redounding of praise unto God! What else can there be but this? My heart is clean before him, washed in the struggle of his pursuit, a heart for him, exposed by him and therefore a heart cleansed of fear. There is no fear in love, for love has seen all and knows all, and still takes in. God be praised forever.

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I highly recommend reading Genesis 25-33 for the context of this story. This is a profoundly personal story for me, because Jacob is a character I identify with deeply. The four parts are not designed to be read separately, but as one whole. But I wrote them in parts because it would have taken too long to write it all at once.