Jacob is changed irrevocably from his night of wrestling with God and bears permanent scars from this encounter, limping forever as a result (see Gen 32:31). Most of us want the blessings that God can bring, but are not so keen on the brokenness that is sometimes a part of receiving those blessings. There are no victories in the Christian life unless we learn what it is to be defeated by God. We have to learn the meaning of ‘magnificent defeat’ (Wes King), that unless we lose our lives, we will never find them. Jesus made this very plain: ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.’ (Mark 8:34-35) One commentator says, ‘In Western culture and even in our churches, we celebrate wealth and power, strength, confidence, prestige, and victory. We despise and fear weakness, failure, and doubt. Though we know that a measure of vulnerability, fear, discouragement and depression come with normal lives, we tend to view these as signs of failure or even a lack of faith.’ Jacob is a vivid reminder to us that blessing and brokenness can very often not be separated in the Christian life.
Life breaks us. Things happen to us beyond our control which break us and we are never the same again after these things. We may heal physically; we may even know emotional healing, but we bear scars from these things. We limp.
God breaks us. Just as a horse trainer knows that a horse has to be broken before it can be ridden safely, God knows that if our self remains undefeated, we will not find the blessing He has for us. Jacob is never the same again after this encounter. He is not perfect: far from it. But he has learnt that in surrender and apparent defeat, there can be victory and blessing. Frederick Buechner says of this encounter that it represents the ‘magnificent defeat of the human soul at the hands of God.’
In our society, we often feel that brokenness means failure; we very quickly throw out broken things and replace them with pristine new ones. God is not like that, however. Brokenness is actually a prerequisite of being used by God. He’s not interested in perfect people, in flawless individuals. (They don’t exist, anyway, so there is no wonder He’s not interested in them!) He specialises in using people who are flawed, sinful and disobedient – people like Jacob. He specialises in turning the deceiver into one who has seen God face to face and lived. He knows all about brokenness. After all, Jesus Himself is known by the scars; He’s worshipped in heaven as the Lamb who was slain (Rev 5:6):
‘The marks of death that God chose never to erase,
The wounds of love’s eternal war.
When the kingdom comes with its perfected sons,
He will be known by the scars.’ (‘Known By The Scars’, Michael Card)
