Voices: Finding God’s blessing in our struggles

Sometimes, God’s blessing leaves us with a limp.

Zac Harrel

I am referring, of course, to the account of Jacob wrestling with God in Genesis 32:22-32. Jacob wrestles with God and will not let God go until a blessing is given. Then, for the rest of his life, he walks with a limp from a touch of God on his hip socket. His limp is a reminder of this moment of wrestling, of this moment of struggle and ultimately of this blessing.

In our current church culture, we don’t have a concept for this kind of story. God’s blessing has been reduced to health and wealth. Too many see God as a holy ATM and his blessing as a way to make our lives more comfortable.

This shallow understanding of God’s blessing causes us to see moments of struggle not as blessings but as moments where God’s blessing has been removed. Nothing could be further from the truth. In our struggles, in our wrestling with faith, we find God’s blessing.

In moments that leave us with a limp, we know we have met God and experienced his blessing.

Limp-inducing experiences

The last five years have been filled with limp-inducing experiences for my family. My wife survived thyroid cancer. We experienced a miscarriage. I lost my mother, an aunt and my grandmother. My wife lost both of her grandfathers. Family members have been diagnosed with cancer.

It seems when we begin to see the light after a season of darkness, we enter another valley.

Of all of these, the one I limp with most today is the death of my mom. She passed away two months before our daughter was born. My mom had been buying gifts for her granddaughter the moment she heard the news of our pregnancy. I don’t know of anyone who was so excited for the arrival of a new child—except maybe Sarah and Abraham.

Then, suddenly, one October night, she was gone. In the next two months, we had baby showers and celebrations of this blessing from God, but this blessing came with a limp. I wrestled with God through that season. I don’t understand the plan or purpose of God in that loss, at that particular moment, but I trust God because I know he is there, and I know he loves me.

Face to face with God

What amazes me about this story in Genesis 32 is God meets Jacob face to face. He wrestles Jacob face to face, and he blesses Jacob personally. We see God’s power in the fact he touches Jacob’s hip socket and leaves him with this limp. Just a touch, and Jacob never is the same.

Yet God allows Jacob to struggle with him. What this reminds me of is the truth that God did not abandon me in my loss. God was there personally in my struggle and wrestling amidst my grief and doubt.

I often think of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane when I come to Genesis 32. Jesus also wrestled with God. He cried out for the cup to pass from him, yet he prayed with faith, “Not my will, but yours be done.”

Jesus went to the cross and rose from the grave, and it is this truth that gives me hope in the midst of the chaos of this world. It is this hope that reminds me God is there and God loves me, even when I don’t understand everything.

Hope of the gospel

The hope of the gospel helps me take the next step of faith, even when I walk with a limp in this broken world. The blessing of the gospel is present in every valley of life. Every moment of our lives, we can look to the Cross and to the Resurrection and know the presence, love and blessing of God.

The limp of grief I walk with now points my heart back to those moments of wrestling with God and reminds me of his blessings in the midst of great loss.

So, I want to encourage you. No matter what you are walking through today, God’s blessing is more than your health and your wealth. God’s blessing truly is found in the moments of struggle, in our moments of wrestling with him. God’s blessing is found in the moments when all you can do is hold on to him.

We may walk with a limp, but we are blessed.

Zac Harrel is pastor of First Baptist Church in Gustine, Texas.