“And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. ”                        Genesis 32:24, KJV

Monday Morning Manna

For the better part of fifteen years it has become the custom of my family that every Friday we order a pizza and sit in front of the television to watch a movie which in most cases is a marathon.  A marathon is a series of related movies that come on one after another until all episodes have been viewed.  Many years ago we stumbled upon a movie called “Rocky” that has since become our family favorite.   The movie Rocky is a series of eight shows chronicling the life and rise to stardom of champion fighter Rocky Balboa from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.      In 2013, while vacationing in New York City we decided that since we loved Rocky so much and were so close to Philly, we would drive down to see the Rocky statue, to take pictures of his birth home and to stop by the gym in which he once trained. To my dismay after researching this matter a bit further, I became disgusted so much so that the joy I use to get from watching Rocky marathons soon passed. 

Sadly and strangely, it seems that there is not now, nor has there ever been a fighter from Philly or anywhere else in the world known as Rocky Balboa. In fact, the whole show is a fictitious farce in the finite mind of a filmmaker which simply means that the whole thing was make believe.  Though it’s lost its appeal to me and my family I can affirm that there is at least one truth related to films about Rocky Balboa.  Notably the one truth regarding Rocky movies and also applicable to you and me is that there will be times in our lives that we will have to wrestle out of our weight-class. By this I mean to suggest that sometimes we may find ourselves in a bout with an opponent, obstacle or obtrusive that may be bigger, stronger, wiser and even more fierce and when such is the case we can either respond or retreat.  Have you ever wondered why it is that we have never seen nor will we see a fighter Mike Tyson’s size fight someone Floyd Mayweather’s size or someone Evander Holyfield’s size fight someone Manny Pacquiao’s size? The answer is that in the world of fighting there are divisions based on weight class with the smallest being the flyweight (108 pounds) and the largest being the heavyweight (over 200 pounds).  In the world of fighting it is well understood that one’s size gives them an unfair advantage over others, so to keep from causing greater than normal injury to fighters, wrestlers and kickboxers absolutely no one is allowed to fight outside of their weight-class. 

Interesting to me is the fact that weight class rules don’t apply to those outside of the professional fighting arena thus with no regard to whether we may be seriously injured or perhaps even killed you and me must sometimes face opponents, obstacles and objectors that far exceed our weight-class.  For instance, I can make the argument that racism is bigger and stronger than us, the coronavirus is bigger and stronger than us, voter suppression is bigger and stronger than us and a whole host of other issues like mass incarceration, health problems and generational curses are all much bigger and much stronger than us; yet, they are often unavoidable circumstances.   Along this line of discussion it even seems that God knew that like Rocky, we too would sometimes find ourselves in the ring of life with challengers who have the upper-hand. 

To this the scriptures would inform us that God has not given us the Spirit of fear but of power, of love and of sound mind.  In fact, from the Bibles perspective its Gods intention that though we may be often outmatched still we can and must endure each obstacle, opponent and objector by standing firm on His Holy Word, by trusting in His Holy power and by learning life lessons along the way.

Are you facing anything bigger than you right now?  If so, keep reading because through todays text you will find some actions that just might give you the advantage over your enemy.  At the time of this text Jacob whose name means con-man has found himself in the fight of his life. Jacob left home nearly twenty years ago after a fight between he and his brother Esau. It happened that one day while Esau was out hunting for wild game his brother Jacob was at home preparing a meal. Once Esau came home he asked his brother for a bowl of the meal being prepared to which Jacob replied, “I will sell it to you for your birthright” During this particular time, the birthright was what we would call an inheritance today.  The rules governing biblical birthrights mandated that they were only granted to the first born male child.  It should be understood that Jacob being the younger child would have had nothing coming but still he continued to go even further in his con of taking his brothers inheritance by disguising himself to look like Esau so that on his father’s deathbed the then blind man would not be able to tell them apart.  After the birthright had been legally passed on to Jacob through theft, Esau returned home and learned what had happened.  The tension between the two brothers over this became so high that in fear for his life Jacob had to leave home immediately.    

In this particular text Jacob is returning home to see Esau for the first time in two decades and according to verse twenty-three Jacob spends the evening alone in a remote location. The actions that Jacob takes in the remaining verses inform us of what we should do whenever we find ourselves wresting with overwhelming opponents, obstacles or objectors.  In verse twenty-four we read that there Jacob wrestled with a man.  Most Bible scholars agree that the man with which Jacob wrestled that night was Jesus Christ or at least an Angel but in either way this opponent was bigger, larger and even wiser than Jacob.  The word structure of the verse actually gives us the first action that we ought to take when we are overwhelmed which is that we should pray.  The Hebrew word for wrestle in verse twenty-four is awbak which means to get down and dirty.  In our understanding we should take this to mean that when trouble comes we can do more by going down and praying than we ever could do by retreating.  Secondly, verse twenty-four states that Jacob wrestled with the un-named man all night long, which informs us of the importance of waiting on God while we’re praying for His Greatness to be revealed in our situation.  There is much to be said about waiting but more than anything we must recognize that nothing will happen outside of Gods timing so the best thing we could ever do after praying about a matter is to wait and see how God will intervene on our behalf.  Finally, after praying and waiting we have nothing left to do but to hold on to our faith by trusting that God will make a way – somehow!  In verse twenty-five the text says that after Jacob realized he was outmatched he simply held on while repeating the words, “I won’t let go until you Bless me.” Brother my appeal to you today is that you will begin to pray, to wait and to trust God in spite of everything that you may be facing right now.  In fact, should you be so led, the best prayer to pray while you wait this evening is the one through which you ask God to forgive your sins and to accept you as His child so that you can receive the rich reward of a heavenly inheritance when the day breaks!

In Jesus’ Name,