January, February, March, April, May…
I don’t know about you, but I sense good things are going to happen in 2009. Not necessarily all happy things, but many good things, because I believe God works good out of everything, even suffering. Even evil, if it comes. The way I figure it, I can’t lose unless I quit trusting and obeying Him.
The best purchase I made last year was a One Year Chronological Bible–it parcels out some Scripture to read IN ORDER every day. That’ s cool for some of those books that just don’t follow a linear timeline, and it puts everything in context of the bigger story. After all, it’s all about a Wedding, when it’s all said and done…but more about that in other posts.
This morning’s reading was about Jacob, or Israel. God re-named him. See, in the Bible, names reveal a person’s nature, and Jacob’s first name, the one given to him by his parents, meant “trickster.” That foreshadowed one of the major themes of his life. (We all have at least one.) That theme shaped who he was… or maybe just revealed it. At any rate, that was not where our good God intended to leave him, for he was one of the heroes in the Story. So in a moment of crisis, all alone in the desert, his family sent on ahead so they might be safer in a volatile situation, Jacob found himself wrestling with a stranger.
All night. In the dark. Grappling with someone he could not see but surely had to beat or be beaten by… What a trip! At daybreak, this stranger spoke for the first time. “Let me go. It’s morning.” The sound of His voice resonated with something wise inside of Jacob. He understood Who he had been struggling with all along, and he desperately shot back, “No. Not letting you go until You bless me.”
See. Jacob needed a breakthrough in his life. Needed for things to go differently than they had. Knew only God could change things like that. In a really weird way, God had gotten into Jacob’s world and messed him up all night, and now Jacob felt like he could ask–like he HAD to ask–for some help.
I love God so much because He gave it in the best way. First, He asked Jacob to state his old name. Admit what he had been up to then. Say the problem out loud and own it. When Jacob did, God came through with a miracle: a new nature just for him, complete with a new name indicating what HE sees when He looks at his person.
God isn’t stuck in time, in linear mode, like us. He sees all things at once. He sees you when you were a baby, you when you were three, you when you were thirteen, thirty, sixty, ninety… and if you are in Christ, He sees you when you are a billion and three, living in heaven with Him. Right now. All at once, everything in between. The good, the bad, the ugly. All of your stages are stacked one on top of the other, and God sees them as one whole. And He loves you. That’s why how you are right now or have always been up to now doesn’t trip Him up or cause Him to be totally disappointed in you …He knows how you have or soon will choose His Son’s gift of righteousness. He knows your “good” moments, knows how you will be as you get better by His Spirit in you, and He is applauding every stride forward you are making as you work with Him. And because your true self is actually separate from the actions you express, at the core of it all, He loves you just because you’re His, the work of His hands. This is what HE sees when He looks at your person.
He saw Jacob that way, too. Jacob had been through a lot; his sins had been heaped back upon him a few times with many hardships attached. God knew. All of that had led up to this desperate, cold, sweaty moment in the desert…and in the honesty of Jacob’s confession and plea, God showed His best: His Face.
Now being reflective creatures, we tend to become like what we’re looking at. Jacob saw God as He really is…and lived as a result.
Finally looking into the face of God (instead of turning away or looking around), this man stood there and shone like a moon. Time stood still. Ah…what God had intended him to be all along….
To anchor down the truth of this moment, God spoke over him again with a new, God-given name.
God is truth. There is no lie in Him, so when He says you are something, you can take it to the bank and cash everything else in on it because it is RIGHT. THAT is what you really are. What Jacob really was was Israel, “God fights.” (Israel was and is someone God fights for and with, for their good and for His glory.)
Jacob, er, Israel, was different from then on. He still operated in his old nature from time to time and God had to remind him of his new nature to get him back on track, but God made it clear from that point on that He was especially fond of Israel. Notably, the place God directed Israel to always go back to was a place called Bethel, or House of God, which was the first place they ever met. But the wrestling spot in the desert was called PENIEL, or Face of God. I find it interesting that they are distinctly separate.
One can know God in His house and yet not know Him face to face. Joy, blessing, favor, change come when you meet Him face to face.
My point? If you need a breakthrough in your life, a change you cannot make happen by yourself, go get alone with God. Ask Him to arrange a time where you can seek His face until you’ve SEEN Him. Believe me, you will know when it happens. Be honest there; admit your nature and your need. Then listen. Hear Him speak His word over you, the truth as HE sees it. He will shine, and you may brilliantly reflect it. This is your new nature–the new you! His face is your doorway to new things. Walk into Him. Receive His blessing. Things will change. For your good and for His glory.
I love you. Happy new year.
