What Is Your Name?

Last Sunday we continued our Questions GOD Asks Us message series and we explored the question GOD asked Jacob, “What is your name?” (Genesis 32.27)

The back story is up to that point, Jacob had lived a life of deception. His name literally meant “heel holder” – because when he was born, he emerged holding his brother Esau’s heel – but it had come to mean cheat and deceiver. Jacob became wealthy and prominent through his deceptive actions; he cheated his father, his brother, and his father-in-law. One could wonder how much all this deception burdened Jacob throughout this life, but on the night before he knew he was to reunite with his brother, there is no doubt that burden was heavy.

Jacob was scared. He feared for his life, his family, and his property, evidenced by how he sent them ahead. Jacob then went down to the bank of the Jabbok River where he was engaged in a wrestling match that would change his life. Apparently Jacob was skilled in the ways of wrestling. I am sure he wrestled a lot internally with who he was and what he had done. I am also quite sure he had wrestled with God as he prepared to meet up with Esau. So as he steeled himself to meet back up with his brother, he had some work to do.

The Genesis account tells us that “the man” was not able to get the better of Jacob. Imagine this like a sort of draw. So “the man” wrenched Jacob’s hip, leaving him to walk with a limp the rest of his life. In the midst of his mightiest struggle, the cheater had been cheated. But from God’s point of view, this was not the kind of cheating that evaded defeat, but ensured victory…Jacob’s ultimate victory!

It might seem like God should have the ability to “win” the decision in any match, but maybe a victory in this sense looks a bit different from a standing 10-count. Maybe, just maybe, God wanted Jacob to sort through his feelings, admit his exhaustion in the ongoing struggle, and find a victory that overcame his past. As Jacob’s wrestling match seemed like a draw, Jacob asked for a blessing, and it was then that God asked Jacob his name. At that moment, Jacob had to come face-to-face with who and what he had become. Jacob had to confess his past, his short-comings, his cheating, and his deception. There in that struggle, I get the image that God had Jacob on his knees, giving him the ability to find victory in surrender…not the kind of surrender that assures defeat in the match, but ensures victory in life! God gave Jacob his new name, Israel, and set him on a path that would enable God to keep His promise to Jacob’s grandfather, Abraham. A new identity…a new future…a new name…Jacob, thanks to his wrestling, had a new life!

In God’s ongoing struggle with us to help us become more like Jesus, we will face all kinds of problems, but the promise is they will not undo us. We might end up walking with a limp, but like Jacob, that limp can help remind us with each and every step that God’s love is the ultimate force in creation. (See Romans 8.31-39)

God is working to make us like Jesus, but chances are we are wrestling with Him in that process. When we surrender our worn-out and dead-end lives to God, He fills us with His love and shows us the blessings of the new creation He makes of us (2 Corinthians 5.17). First, you must come face-to-face with what you have become and embrace the hope that the Lord has in store for you. No matter what your name might have come to mean, God wants to give you the blessing of knowing that it is now, beloved child of God. Once you were wayward, but God wants you to experience the blessing of knowing you are His, bought with a price, because of His incredible love. The Father in heaven, claiming you as His own, forgiving you of your past, promising you a new future, and forming a new identity. Praise the Lord!

So, what is your name?

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!

(1 John 3:1)