Many champion athletes tell how they began to practice their sport at an early age. I have heard some say how they started to ski or skate soon after they were able to walk, or how they learned to hit a baseball before they were old enough to go to school. But there is a man in the Bible who tops them all; he learned to wrestle before he came out of his mother's womb! This wrestling match is recorded in Genesis 25:22, which says, "And the children (Jacob and Esau) struggled together within her."

This man's name is Jacob, and he became the greatest wrestler in history for he also wrestled with God and prevailed! (Gen.32:25). He is not only the greatest wrestler of all time, he is listed in the roll call of the Heroes of Faith recorded in the Bible in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews. And he was a man who loved God deeply.

With all of that, you'd think Jacob would have had a peaceful, glorious life here on earth. But he didn't; his life was filled with anxiety. Now, we all have a certain amount of stress in our lives, but if you think your life is stressful, just read about Jacob. You may wonder how a man with so much faith could have had such difficulties. One reason is that he brought many of them upon himself by wrestling the wrong way.

The word wrestle means "to struggle." In this life we will have plenty of that. Wrestling can be helpful or harmful; it all depends on how we do it and whom we oppose. Some struggles are good for us, for they give us an opportunity to exercise our faith by persisting in prayer and becoming victorious through the power God gives to us as we seek Him and His help. When we learn to wrestle the right way, we become aware that we are "more than conquerors through Him that loved us" (Rom.8:37); but when we wrestle the wrong way, life can become one big disaster.

One meaning of the word Jacob in Hebrew is "heel-catcher." Jacob was always trying to grab things in life. He even grabbed his twin brother Esau by the heel as he followed him out of his mother's womb. He developed this instinct of grabbing for things as he grew older; that is why he was so good at wrestling.

The word Jacob also means "supplanter." My dictionary describes a supplanter as "one who takes the place of someone by scheming." It was his scheming and deceitfulness that caused him to wrestle the wrong way.

His mother Rebekah must have had the same problem because when Jacob became of age, she schemed to have him take his brother's place to deceive his blind father Isaac; and in this deceitful way, Jacob stole Esau's birthright (Gen.27:6-10).

Jacob was a man of great faith who loved God and continually received His blessings. However, he did not enjoy life the way he could have because of his problem of trying to push, to force, to grab, and to make things happen his own way, instead of waiting on the Lord and doing things His way. Oh, so many of us can identify with Jacob!

Even though we love the Lord and have faith, we still, because of our old human nature, can be very deceitful; and if we are, we will not enjoy the blessings. The Bible says, "For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak NO guile" (1Pet.3:10). The word guile in Greek means "to decoy, a trick, deceit." If we are not enjoying the blessings of God, if we do not have a love for life, perhaps it is a sign we are not being honest. Honesty is becoming a rare commodity in this world.

If we Christians choose to walk in the flesh rather than the Spirit, we will be tempted to use deception to control others, but our Heavenly Father loves us too much to let us get away with that! When the Lord is trying to communicate to us that we are playing the control game, He will often put us together with another controller who will be a mirror to us.

Jacob met his match when he met his Uncle Laban (to whose home in Haran he ran after cheating Esau) who became his father-in-law, for he was a controller, too. Can you imagine the wrestling that took place between these two expert controllers, living in the same household for twenty years?! Things finally got unbearable for Jacob, and the Lord was merciful to him and told him to return home to "the land of thy fathers, and to thy kindred" (Gen.31:1-3).

Let me tell you, it is not easy to make a break with a controller or to stop playing the control game! But if we really want to get free from the need to let others control us or from the need to control others, God will move Heaven and earth to help, for He wants us to be free from that satanic bondage!

God not only told Jacob to make a break with Laban, but He also said He would be with him (Gen.31:1-3) and sent angels to escort him home (Gen.32:1). Surely, that was plenty of protection for any circumstance; there was no reason for him not to have a joyful journey. You would think, after all the hassles with Laban, that Jacob would be tired of all that planning and manipulating to do things his own way, but he still chose to walk on the low road.

Deceitfulness can produce some tremendous dilemmas in one's life. For example: Jacob's brother Esau, who hated him and vowed to kill him because he had tricked him out of his birthright (Gen.27:41), was on his way to meet him with an army of four hundred men (Gen.32:6). This would have been a valid reason for a panic attack if the Lord had not led Jacob to take this trip home, and assured him He would be with him, and if He had not let him see the Heavenly host of angels who were accompanying him (Gen.32:1,2).

When Jacob heard that his brother was headed his way, he focused his eyes more on the present circumstances than on the Lord's promises; for the Bible says, "Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed: and he divided the people that was with him, and the flocks, and herds, and the camels, into two bands; and said, if Esau come to the one company, and smite it, then the other company which is left shall escape" (Gen.32:7, 8). Naturally, he made sure he was in the last company.

Then Jacob--the man of faith who loved God--did the right thing; he cried out to the Lord in prayer (Gen.32:9-12). But did he wait for God's guidance? (Not an easy thing to do for one who is used to manipulating.) No, he didn't wait. He spent the day working out his plans to meet his brother. He added more companies so he would be further from the front, and he made sure each group had a good supply of presents to appease Esau.

When night came he could not sleep, so he rose up and sent his family and the rest of the company that was with him over a brook. And then, as he was alone, the Lord appeared to him. But rather than quietly, reverently asking Him what He would have him do, Jacob grabbed the Lord and wrestled with Him until the break of day!

The Bible gives a clear description of this historic wrestling match: "And when he (the Lord) saw that he prevailed not against him (Jacob), he (the Lord) touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him. And he (the Lord) said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he (Jacob) said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me" (Gen.32:25, 26).

Did Jacob come out a winner in this contest? Judge for yourself. Here are the results: The Lord said to him, "Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed . . . And he blessed him there" (Gen.32:28, 29).

But . . . also, as a result of this wrestling match, Jacob "halted upon his thigh" (Gen.32:31), or, as another translation puts it, "He was limping because of his hip." There is an indication that his hip stayed out of joint the rest of his life here on earth. The Bible says that when he was old and dying, he worshiped God, "leaning upon the top of his staff" (Heb.11:21).

Do you think Jacob came out ahead in that wrestling match? He did receive the blessing, but God had already told him long before that He was going to continually bless him. He did hang onto God, which is what all of us should do; but even more important is that we know God is hanging onto us, for His arms are much stronger than ours. The Bible says He "is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy" (Jude 24).

There is a difference between drawing near to our Savior and placing our head upon His bosom, as John the disciple did (John 13:23), and wrestling with the Lord, as Jacob did. Do we, His beloved children, need to squeeze out a blessing from Him when He longs to bless us?! The Bible says He "daily loadeth us with benefits" (Ps. 68:19), and to "fear not . . . for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom" (Luke 12:32).

There is an old teaching from the mind of man that portrays Jesus as a shepherd who breaks the leg of a little wayward sheep to keep it from going astray again. Do you think your Good Shepherd would do that to keep you in line?! That would be the ultimate control game! If you were a sheep, would you want to draw near to a shepherd who would break your leg?

God does not control His children, and He has not made us as robots to be controlled. We do have this awesome right to choose, which even the Lord will not violate. THAT IS WHY THE LORD DID NOT PREVAIL AGAINST THE WRESTLING OF JACOB! It is fright-ening to think of how much destruction we can cause with our freedom of choice.

You and I have a choice: we can struggle against God and push our own pathway through life, or we can enter into His flow and enjoy His presence. If we choose to insist on doing things our way, we will still have many blessings from Him, because He loves to bless us. But will we enjoy them?

One meaning of the word Israel in Hebrew is "He struggles with God." Now, there are many born again Jews in this world, but the nation of Israel is still in a tremendous struggle with God, so much so that it still will not recognize Jesus as the Messiah. Are the Jewish people willing to let Jesus heal their crippled walk, which they brought on themselves by resisting God?

The Bible says, "Therefore the children of Israel eat not of the sinew which shrank, which is upon the hollow of the thigh, unto this day: because he touched the hollow of Jacob's thigh in the sinew that shrank" (Gen.32:32). Instead of taking into their hearts what the Lord wanted them to learn in the lesson of Jacob, they chose to make a religious tradition about not eating a certain part of an animal.

They are a disobedient, self-willed people who resist God rather than submit to Him. When Jesus gave His life on the cross to take away our sins and give us direct access to the Heavenly Father, the veil that separated the people from the most holy place in the temple was ". . . rent in twain from the top to the bottom . . ." (Mat. 27:51). Apparently, it didn't take them long to sew it back up. When He gave the New Covenant of grace to them, they chose to reject it and continued in all their customs, rules and regulations.

But we, whom God has delivered out of darkness and into the Kingdom of His dear Son, should not boast, because the Bible teaches, "That blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob" (Rom.11:25, 26). Oh, what glory there will be when Israel receives Jesus!

But let us get back to the great wrestling match. Did Jacob really come through a winner? He did receive a blessing--but he was going to get it anyway. Will we ever learn that resting in the promises is better than struggling to get what we already have in Christ?

Jacob went ahead to carry out his plans to appease Esau, but all that he did was unnecessary, for God had already changed the heart of his brother from hatred to love. Jacob's flimsy bribery scheme had nothing at all to do with the changing of Esau's heart. The hand of Almighty God did that!

I am so glad this scene is recorded for us in the Scriptures. This is how the man who lived by the sword and vowed to kill Jacob acted when they met: "And Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him: and they wept" (Gen.33:4).

Oh, how good life will be here on earth if we simply love the Lord, stay close to Him, and listen to His voice. Jacob loved God and at times drew very close to Him . . . but did He listen?

After that he spent many more years of his life in great anxiety, which could have been avoided. God may have wanted to tell him that his son Joseph had not been killed by a wild beast, but that he was alive in Egypt and being brought to a position where he would be able to deliver Jacob and his family from a great famine; and that Joseph would be arranging for him and his whole household to come down to Egypt where he could enjoy the last seventeen years of his life in prosperity. The Lord could have told him that and a lot more if Jacob had heard His voice. But it is hard to listen when one is wrestling!

Think, for a moment, of how many unnecessary anxiety attacks you have had in the past from not hearing the Lord's voice, or from not resting in the finished work of Christ, or from trying to wrestle out blessings from Him that He has already given you. You have a choice to spend your life WRESTLING or RESTING with God. Either way, you can still have great love for Him and great faith; but if you choose to wrestle--to push, to grab, to control others, to rush ahead on your own--don't be surprised if your spiritual walk is like a man limping because his hip is out of joint.

When we wrestle, we should be certain we do it with the right contender. God is not our opponent--He is our Friend. We should submit to Him, draw near to Him, and He will draw near to us (Jas.4:8). Our opponents are the powers of darkness, and we cannot wrestle against Satan and his angels unless we put on the whole armor of God (Eph.6:11-18). If we resist the devil this way, he will flee from us.

Is your relationship with God becoming easier as the years go by, or is it becoming more of a struggle? Is your service for the Lord easy and completely delightful, or are you headed for a burn out like a frantically working, worldly businessman? Jesus said, "For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." He tells us that if we come to Him and learn of Him, we will find rest for our souls (Mat.11:28-30). That does not sound like a wrestling match!

If you stay in your resting place--which is close to Jesus--and listen to His voice, your strength will be renewed, and you will "mount up with wings as eagles," you will "run, and not be weary," and you will "walk, and not faint" (Isa.40:31); for, "THERE REMAINETH THEREFORE A REST TO THE PEOPLE OF GOD" (Heb.4:9).