The Blessing and the Wound: What You Carry Out of the Fight

There's a night some of you are dreading. It isn't a date on the calendar. It's a reckoning.It's that morning you finally have to face the thing you've been running from, that consequence of a choice you made, that person you wronged at one point, that mess you built with your own two hands. And here's what makes it worse. You can't blame anybody else. You did this yourself. You're the one who schemed. You're the one who grabbed.You're the one who cut the corner. And now that bill's coming due and you're alone in the dark with it, and you can't sleep.So today I want to tell you about a man who spent a whole night exactly there. He was, alone by a river, and he was just dreading the sunrise. He had been a con man his whole life, and he was finally cornered by his own past.And in that dark, God himself showed up and put him in a headlock. And they wrestled until dawn. And the man walked away with two things he didn't have. The night began.A new name and a limp he'd carry for the rest of his life. Hello and welcome to Truth Unveiled with Ralph Estep.I'm Ralph Estep Jr. And I'm so glad you're here today, especially if there's a night you've been dreading. And I want you to hold this before you earn it. You can come out of a fight blessed and still walk with a limp.And both of those things are grace, because for so many of us, we want God to fix us and make us clean. We want to walk away with no marks and no scars. But often that's not how he works.See, so many times he blesses us and he wounds us in the same encounter. And years later, you realize that wound was part of the blessing. So let me get right to it. Let me read what happened by that river.This is our primary text. It comes from the book of Genesis, chapter 32, verses 24 to 31. This is from the World English Bible. Again, Genesis 32.Jacob was left alone, and he wrestled with the man there until the breaking of the day. When he saw that he didn't prevail against him, the man touched the hollow of his thigh, and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was strained as he wrestled.The man said, let me go for the day breaks. Jacob says, I won't let you go unless you bless me. He said to him, what is your name? He said, jacob.He said, your name will no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have fought with God and with men and have prevailed. And Jacob asked him, please tell me your name. And he said, why is it that you ask what my name is? So he blessed him there.Jacob called the name of the place Peniel. For he said, I have seen God face to face, and my life was preserved.The sun rose on him as he passed over Peniel, and he limped because of his thigh. And I just want you to take that story for a second and think about what it's telling us. Jacob saw God face to face, and he limped away from it.Both things in that same sunrise. But I want to start with the schemer at the end of himself. That's where I really want to start our discussion today.Because Jacob isn't the hero that we would have expected. The word Jacob, his name actually means grabber. It means deceiver. Jacob had conned Esau out of his own birthright. He disguised himself.He lied to his blind, dying father and stole the blessing. And Esau swore to kill him. And Jacob had run for 20 years. But even in exile, Jacob, Jacob still schemed. He. He outmaneuvered people.He worked the angles. He was always seizing, never receiving. And in chapter 32, it catches up to him. He's heading home, Esau riding out with 400 men.And Jacob is sure that he's going to die today. The con man's run out of angles. There's no angles left. And he prays for a desperate, honest prayer and sends his family across the river.And the Bible says it clearly. It says Jacob was left alone.You might be feeling alone right now in that thing that you've never had that day of reckoning, but you know it's coming. And I honestly believe that God does his deepest work. When we run out of people to hide behind and the angles to play.I think God sees us when it's just us in the dark, facing that mess that we've made. And I'm going to share my story with you. I'm going to tell you about the fixer who couldn't fix it. I'm a fixer by nature. That's who I am.I spent 30 years as an accountant. Self reliance is my native language, my native tongue. But then my body handed me a problem I couldn't scheme out of.I was nearly 200 pounds overweight, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure. And all my cleverness was useful, but it couldn't work out or angle out where I had come to.And I Had to come to the end of the guy who handles everything himself. And that left alone river, let me tell you, right now, is a lonely place.And that in that darkness, in that lonely place, is when I finally asked God to help me. And guess what? He did help me. And I've been healed in so many ways that I can't even express. But guess what?Those decisions I made for so many years, I still have the scars. You know, as a diabetic, I have scars like nerve pain. I've got permanent damage to my body that I did because of my decisions.It's something that for the rest of my life, I've got to pay constant attention to. I got the blessing, but I got the scars. So here's my honest question for you right now. What's the night that you're dreading?What is that night that you're dreading right now? And is it possible that God let you get cornered? He lets you run out of angles precisely because he wants to meet the real you for the first time.And I want you to hold that, because the man who shows up the river is who Jacob is, not who Jacob expects. And let's get back into the story. Let's talk about why he won't let go and why he won't stay unmarked. Get back to the story.Says he was alone and suddenly wrestling with a man all night in the dark. Can you imagine being alone, wrestling with this man in the dark? You can't even see this person.But this was no ordinary man, because Jacob names the place, he calls it. I have seen God face to face. Guess what? He was wrestling God in the dark, alone. But think of the mercy that God shed on him.God could have ended it in half a second. Can you imagine? I'm wrestling God, and God's like, oh, I'm gonna let him hang on. It says he let him hang on all night long.He lets Jacob wrestle all night long. And I think it points to something. I think it points to Jacob had wrestled with God from a distance his whole life.Are you wrestling with God from a distance right now? I know for many years I was. But here in the story, God finally gets in the dirt with him and he gives him the fight up close, face to face.Some of you have wrestled God for years, and it's time the two of you got in the ring where he can reach you. And just think about this. He wrestled all night long. You can just imagine back and forth, this grab and that grab in the dark.And near dawn, it says, God Touches the hip socket and wrenched it out of joint. I can't even imagine a pain, but just one touch and just to wrench that completely out of joint. And it's interesting if you think about it.God was never struggling to beat Jacob. God could have taken him out in an instant, but God was letting him hold on all night long.And in that one touch, that one wrestling, that one struggle, God shows he's really been in control all night long. And you think a wound would make Jacob let go? I don't know. If it were me and God finally wrestled me, I'd be like, wow, I'm done. I give up. No more.You would think that wound would have Jacob had let go, but it was the opposite. He said, now he can't wrestle. All he can do is cling onto him. Just think about the view of that.He can't fight him anymore, so all he can do is hang on him.If you've ever watched a boxing match, when two people are in the ring boxing, when one of the fighters gets tired, or sometimes they both get tired, what do they start doing? They start clinging on to each other. And what does he say to God? He says, I won't let go unless you bless me. Here he is, the grabber.He's been a grabber his whole life. That's what the name Jacob meant. Deceiver, grabber. He's still grabbing, but not a stolen blessing. This time. He's clinging to God himself.This was the point where he stopped taking. He'd been taken his whole life. And he started begging God to receive something. And it wasn't until he got that wound that he was able to do that.And God asked his name. And you might not know this, but I did research for the show. And the last time someone asked Jacob, he lied. This is the whole story.He lied and he said, I am Esau to his blind father because he wanted that blessing from his father. So the last time he had been asked his name, he lied about it. So God intentionally, in my view, asked him.But this time, Jacob was wounded and he's clinging and he tells the truth. I'm Jacob. I'm the grabber. I'm the deceiver. That was the very moment that he owns who he's been his entire life. And what does God do?God renames him Israel. Now Israel, as I can tell, is one who wrestles with God. And in that instant, God changed his identity. He was no longer the grabber.He was the one who held on and wouldn't Let go. Which takes us to Second Corinthians, chapter 12, verse 9. Again in the World English Bible, Second Corinthians 12. 9.He has said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. I just love that verse. My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in your weakness. And I just think about the two of these folks.I say, folks, Jacob and God wrestling. And God could have very well healed that limp of Jacob's, but he didn't.And I think that was intentional, because I think God said Jacob, who could still strut back, would go back to scheming. He'll go back to his old ways. But a Jacob who limps has to lean. Where is he leaning into? He's leaning into God.That limp was not God failing to finish the job.That limp right there was mercy because God was wise enough to know that if he hadn't have made him limp, lame, whatever that term is, Jacob would have went back to his old self. But now he had to lean on God, and we've got to do the same thing. And that's what I want to talk about now. Let's talk about learning to lean.This was something I had to do when I finally hit rock bottom. I had to finally stop trying to figure it out on my own and just lean into God.So right now, wherever you are, I want to encourage you to do something. Stop running from the night and just let it happen. Jacob ran for his reckoning.For 20 years, the best thing that ever happened was the night he couldn't run anymore. He was facing Esau. He was facing certain death. Now, you're probably not facing death right now, but whatever. You're avoiding that hard conversation.You need to have the amends. You need to make that honest mirror that you've got to look in yourself.God may very well be waiting in that mirror, in that conversation, in that amends. And the wrestling match that you dread might very well be the encounter that changes your name. So cross that river.And when you're cornered, I want to encourage you to cling instead of scheme again. Jacob's whole life was grabbing onto something, scheming, playing games, conning people. And it took a wound to make him finally cling.Friend, you don't have to wait for that wound to happen when you hit that thing you can't fix, when you've worked all the angles, or you can grab God and refuse to let go. And just like Jacob, I won't let you go unless you bless me. That's not weakness.That is the strongest, most honest prayer that Jacob could have asked at that minute.And I want to lean back into my story because I want to tell you what finally broke me, what finally led me to that darkness and that feeling of being alone that I had wrestled for so long. I will never forget it. I was at the doctor's office.I was at the eye doctor's office, actually, and he did his normal looking around and kind of took a double take. And he looked at me and this is a guy I've been going to for years. And he said, ralph, he says, I can see the damage.And I looked at him, I said, what do you mean? He goes, ralph, he says, I've been telling you for years, you got to get this diabetes under control.And he says, I'm going to show you a picture on the screen he pulled up of. I want you to call it like an X ray of my eye. And he started to point to these little spots. And he said, those are broken blood vessels.And I said, well, what would cause that? He says, high blood sugar. So I had finally gotten to the point where there was nothing else that I could do.Everything that I had schemed and tried and cut corners and did all of those things, it finally caught up with me. That was the season that my Bonaire cornered me. And I didn't limp away like Jacob, but it taught me to lean into God. And I'll never forget.I went home that day, and it was that night quiet. And that night I was all alone. And I said, man, I don't want to lose my sight, because that's what we're talking about here.My diet doctor is very clear. He said, ralph, at some point, you're going to lose your sight. And I couldn't even imagine that. And I'm not.I'm not trying to minimize people who are blind. Don't take it that way. I finally realized that, hey, this is something that's serious. It got serious. And I never.At night, I hit my knees and I said, God, look, I can't do this anymore on my own. I have tried everything. I have tried every weight loss.I have tried every bounce and what they call that, the yo yo diets and the Weight Watchers and the this and the Jenny Craigs. I mean, I had tried them all. But when I finally hit bottom, and that's what I call bottom, I just leaned into God.And as I sit here right now, I've lost the weight. I've reversed the diabetes. I've Cured a lot of things. I used to have a CPAP I had to sleep with at night. I don't need that at all anymore.And that's a beautiful thing. But what mattered more than any of those things, as I walked away, leaning into God, I finally realized that I'm not the strong one.I'm not the fixer here. I'm not the fixer of my own soul. The guy who handled everything. And I was the guy who handled everything.From the time I was eight years old, I was the go to guy. The guy who handled everything. I know that night I was carried. That limp is what lets me do what I do.Because I can sit with people as a fellow limper, not standing over them because that wound makes the arm around the shoulder honest. Because I've been there. So you can't say to somebody, it's gonna be okay. Especially when we're talking about weight loss.Unless you've been at that river and you face that point where you can't do this your own anymore. So here's the thing I'm going to encourage you to do. And I think Jacob did this. You got to wear the limp as proof it's not shame.Some of us carry a mark from a season with God. And that brings us many things. It brings us humility. It brings us tenderness. It brings us awareness of weakness.And so many of us, and I've been guilty of this. We treat it like damage, like we're broken, like there's something wrong with us, like we're wounded.But I want to encourage you to change the dynamic. It's not damage. What you've gone through, that's your pineal. It's proof that you met God face to face and you lived. So don't hide that limp.The most honest thing about you. The most honest thing. Paul said it. He had a thorn in his side. The most honest thing about you is the thing that God uses the most.The sun rose on him. It's what the scripture says. It said the sun rose on him as he passed pineal and he limped and he crossed into new life, leaning.He was blessed and limping at the same time. That's not a lesser way to walk. It's the only way any of us walk once we've truly met God. But now I want to get quiet with you for a minute.I started off this particular show about thinking about the night you've been avoiding that river. You're not going to cross right now.What are you still trying to scheme your way around what is God waiting on the other side of that river to meet you to talk about? Or maybe you're still wrestling God from a distance. You're grabbing for control.You're keeping him at arm's length, and he wants to fight up close where he can actually reach you. And when he asks you your real name, I'm talking about that true run under all the versions. Will you a lie like the old Jacob?Or will you tell the truth and what you've been calling damage your entire life? That might actually be your limp. That might be your pineal. That might be the proof that you met God and lived.So here's the truth, unveiled for today. God doesn't always fix you clean. We would love it to be that way. We'd love it that God. Oh, just fix this. Make me clean, Lord.But sometimes he blesses you and he wound you in the very same encounter. But friend, that wound is mercy because it teaches you something more valuable than that. It teaches you to lean. God and Jacob met face to face.And Jacob walked away with a new name and a limp. So you can come out of a fight blessed and still walk with a limp. And both of them are grace now, maybe right now.You've been wrestling God your whole life. You've been keeping your distance. You've been working every angle to stay in control. And it's left you exhausted. It's left you alone.And it's your own river in the dark. I want to make an invitation right now. I want to encourage you to stop wrestling for control and start clinging for gr.God came down in the dirt with us. Jesus, his son came all the way down to us. He took the wound for us, the wound that you and I earned. He took it on a cross.So our real reckoning ends in an embrace, not death. And Jesus walked out of the grave to give you a new name. Not a grabber, not a failure, not your worst thing. Your new name is his child.And if you're ready to stop chasing and chop running and you're ready to start wrestling God, just pray this with me right now, Jesus. I've been wrestling my whole life. I've been trying to stay in control. But I'm done. I'm done right now at this moment. I can't fix myself, Lord.And just like Jacob, I'm not going to go unless you bless me. I'm not going to let go of you until you bless me. I believe you took my wound on that cross, Lord. And I believe that you rose again.So right now in the dark, alone. I just ask that you would give me a new name, give me a new life. Right now I'm clinging to you. Amen.If you prayed that right now your world has changed and I want to encourage you to tell somebody, you can reach out to me by going to truthunveilwithralph.com/decision. I would love to pray with you. I'd love to talk to you. You don't have to reach out to me. You can go find a church, maybe one believer you can trust.Because, friend, guess what just happened. You just crossed your own river and the sun is coming up on the other side. So I just want to encourage you.Maybe you've been saved a long time ago, but maybe you still gotta cross that river. I want to encourage you today to cross that river you've been avoiding. God is waiting in the night that you're dreading to change your name.He's not waiting there to destroy you. This is your call to stop scheming and just start clinging.If you've hit that thing you can't fix, I want to encourage you right now to grab God and don't let go. And if you've got that limp, I want you to encourage to be wearing that as proof, not shame. That's your penial.I like what the book of Genesis 32:30 says again from the World English Bible. It says Jacob called the name of the place Pen because he said, I have seen God face to face and my life is preserved. Face to face and preserved.You don't come out of the river unmarked, you come out his. How about we pray together? Father, I just want to thank you that you get down in the dirt with us.So for that one who's dreading a reckoning of their own making, Lord, meet them at the river. Turn that night they fear into the night that changes everything in their lives.For that one who's wrestling you from a distance for years, Lord, get close enough to reach them and give them the fight that actually heals their wounds, Lord.And for the ones that are still lying about their name, hiding their real self, I just ask that you would give them courage to tell the truth and to receive the new name you're holding out for them.And for that one who's carrying a limp that they call damage, the one that they call broken, help them see their penal Lord, and wear it as proof that they've met you and they lived and they were preserved.And for that one who right now is realizing that they've got to stop scheming and they've got to cling to you for the first time, Lord, I just ask that you would catch them and bless them and let that sum come up. We're not going to let you go, Lord, unless you bless all of us. And we ask this in Jesus name. Amen. Friend.If this message today has reached you, I want to encourage you to do me a favor. I want you to send it one person who's dreading a night on their own right now.You might be thinking of somebody who's cornered by something they can't fix. Let them hear God is in that wrestling because that's how this ministry grows. It grows by one arm around one shoulder at a time.So just reach out to that person. Just say, hey, I heard this or I watched this and just send them a link.You can subscribe and make sure you come back next time on Truth Unveiled. Because you might be heading into the fight of your life tonight.And I just want to encourage you to cross that river anyway because you're going to come out with a new name and you might come out leaning. And both of those things are grace. So keep seeking the truth and let it set you free. May God bless you and I'll see you next time.