He is Calling & We are Falling

Diving into Genesis has been pretty enriching.

I'm finding every time I encounter more ancient stories I am enthralled with the Lord. Recently, the story of Jacob wrestling with God has been one I keep replaying over in my head, reflecting on in my day to day.

So get this, Jacob is kind of selfish and tricked his older brother Esau into giving him all the inheritance he gained from their father. Because Esau is the older brother, naturally he was granted the father's inheritance...but with that, of course, Jacob becomes jealous and eventually fearful.

Fear.

I think it is the closest we can ever come to meet Satan in our routine lives. Which, if we closely look at this word, we may come to admit maybe we face Satan every single day. That's pretty unsettling isn't it?

So the story continues (as I am synthesizing the story through my own personal lens) that Jacob became uncontrollably afraid of the reaction Esau might have when he found out that he had been tricked into deceit.

Without even having a conversation with his brother, without being honest, Jacob makes assumptions about how his brother might react. Jacob creates expectations. I don't know if this has been something you too have noted, but expectations ruin relationships. And Jacob falls for the first time here.

You see, Jacob begins to reflect on his actions and acknowledges the weight it carries as it falls on the shoulders of those around him. And this is so overwhelmingly scary for Jacob to realize and admit outwardly about the truth of his actions that he decides to isolate himself. Fall number two.

At this point, everything begins to put Jacob on edge. The devil begins to enter and creep into every fiber of his being, that now, Jacob cannot be himself without being Satan's puppet too. Most of the time fear comes in through the quiet darkness late at night. The darkness slowly, but definitely, spreads like a disease, sickening our hearts, our actions, our words, and our image of who we are created to be. And when everything wages war with our hearts and our heads, our first step is isolation. We give into the darkness of the aloneness and Satan is satisfied with the capacity of the aloneness he can have with us. We might even fall a third time by fighting the One who is trying to carry us.

"So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak." (Genesis 32:24)

We wrestle not just for a night, but what becomes a few days...where eventually, the day becomes dark to us too.

"When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled the man." (Genesis 32: 25)

But due to our human nature, we become selfish and think we are invincible. We think we can battle it out with God in the lion's den while Satan cackles to the side watching the greatest war of all go down. But in the ignorance we fail to recognize that Satan has had us in his grasp at this point. He tricks us, as he has been crowned to be the king of liars, that we have been tackling the One who tackled death for us. Rather, the times we are in that lion's den, maybe it is really Satan inside the den with us and God is fighting to break the chains free. Our Christ is rushing to our aid to be torn to pieces by hate for us, so we may not feel it.

How hard it is to die to our pride! How hard it is to let the Lord break down and pull apart those prison bars. But how great the power of Satan is too. And just as Jacob realized he could not out-do Christ's power, the bruises from falling so hard become so much more real.

And the pain should be that way. We were meant to feel. We were meant to fall, but fall so that we could do so in Christ's arms time after time.

It has taken Satan 2,000+ years to perfect his craft. And some days more than others, it feels like he might actually be close to achieving it. But think about that, it took three days for Jesus to die for us and bleed out His mercy and goodness for us, to bring it to His Father so we might someday choose Him too. So we may possibly bleed out in faith for Him too, with scratches, bruises, and ugliness and all. But Satan, it has taken him today and everyday forward to tempt us into eternal hell. Temptation is real and his lies have that power. But if Jacob had never surrendered to the Lord after falling three or however many times to Satan, by asking Christ to not leave until He blessed him, he would have been devoured in that darkness forever.

Maybe the question boils down to this: Are we willing to feel the pain of the falling and the trying - maybe failing here and there occasionally - or are we willing to sign off to the pain we will endure apart from Christ eternally? Will we carry our crosses or will we be content in the enduring pain apart from God's blessing?

I don't think I could be devoured in the darkness of Satan forever. I would much rather see the bumps and the bruises, but watch them as they heal as well.

Remember, God is calling us from the lion's den and He is yelling out your name.

I'll leave this last bit with you:

A couple weeks ago at the Sunday mass homily the priest talked about this abyss of fear. Remember this in the depths of feeling lifeless, remember this in the pit of the prison:

"We fail to respond to God's call in two ways: 1.) We fail to hear or 2.) We hail to fear."

Satan's craft is real, and it is dangerous. I am praying for you that you will respond to God screaming out your name when you are falling and hurting. I am praying that you may not hail to fear but will stop tackling God and grasp His hold instead.

Oh and if you were wondering how the story of Jacob and Esau unfolded, let's just say it was a celebration blessing:

"But Esau ran to meet Jacob and embraced him; he threw his arms around his neck and kissed him. And they wept." (Genesis 33:4)

#Heiscalling #thelionsden #reachout #fearhasnoplacehere #Jacob #Esau #seamlessgrace