Are You Wrestling with God?

They wrestled through the night...
until the dawn was breaking.

Have you ever wrestled with someone? That was not a sport for girls when I was in high school—or one I in which I ever wanted to compete. In this passage of scripture, Jacob wrestled with Jesus Himself! He must have been exceptionally strong because he was winning. Winning against the creator of the Universe. Winning against the all-powerful God. How could any man do that? But Jesus dislocated Jacob’s hip and won the fight. Was that a fair fight? In any athletic competition, that would not have been a legal action. Jacob clung to Jesus until He blessed Jacob as requested. What a story! It is history and is recorded again in Hosea.

Even in the womb, Jacob struggled with his brother; when he became a man, he even fought with God. Yes, he wrestled with the angel and won. He wept and pleaded for a blessing from him. There at Bethel he met God face to face, and God spoke to him—the LORD God of Heaven's Armies, the LORD is his name! Hosea 12:3-5

The face of Jesus in the Old Testament. Jacob saw the face of God…that is the face of Jesus—and wrestled with Him. Then Jesus changed Jacob’s name to “Israel.”  Israel means “he fights or persists with God.” Jacob not only was in God’s presence—he fought with God through the night.  Do you ever feel like you’ve spent the night, not sleeping but wrestling with God? 

 

This left Jacob all alone in the camp, and a man came and wrestled with him until the dawn began to break. When the man saw that he would not win the match, he touched Jacob's hip and wrenched it out of its socket. Then the man said, "Let me go, for the dawn is breaking!" But Jacob said, "I will not let you go unless you bless me." "What is your name?" the man asked. He replied, "Jacob." "Your name will no longer be Jacob," the man told him. "From now on you will be called Israel, because you have fought with God and with men and have won." "Please tell me your name," Jacob said. "Why do you want to know my name?" the man replied. Then he blessed Jacob there. Jacob named the place Peniel (which means "face of God"), for he said, "I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been spared." Genesis 32:24-30

 

Prayer – Lord Jesus, I don’t want to fight or wrestle with You. You are an awesome God whom I worship and adore. Forgive me for being selfish and wanting to do my own thing. Is that how Jacob was to You?

 

Meditate. Consider what it would mean to you to see the face of God.

 

Verse of Salvation ~ Dear friends, I had been eagerly planning to write to you about the salvation we all share. But now I find that I must write about something else, urging you to defend the faith that God has entrusted once for all time to his holy people. I say this because some ungodly people have wormed their way into your churches, saying that God's marvelous grace allows us to live immoral lives. The condemnation of such people was recorded long ago, for they have denied our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. Jude 1:3-4

 

Friday’s Feast at the King’s Table

Let the meal you share with the Lord today fill each of you with His love, peace, and joy together. 

 

© 2025 Text, photos, and illustrations by Mickey M. Hunacek. All rights reserved. 

All scripture quoted from the New Living Translation (NLT) unless otherwise noted. 

New Living Translation copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. 

Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Biblical search from Blue Letter Bible - http://v3.blueletterbible.org/search.cfm. 

 

Books by Mickey M. Hunacek

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