a Love Story – Overcome – February 6
a LOVE STORY
February 6th, 2021
Overcome
Genesis 32:24-30. ‘So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. 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 with the man. Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.” But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” The man asked him, “What is your name?” “Jacob,” he answered. Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.” Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.” But he replied, “Why do you ask me my name?” Then he blessed him there. So Jacob called the place Peniel. saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”
The Creator of all mankind would remember His promise to Abraham and all his descendants, too numerous to count. Sometimes, He felt as if He were watching a soap opera from heaven or reading a smutty Harlequin…what was up with this people He had fashioned? There was no hollow within them for Him to fill with Himself. Sadly, He shook His head (He had been doing that a lot lately; well, honestly, since the beginning of time). His heart ached; this is not what He had envisioned. Then, the Creator reminded Himself, ‘If You wanted robots; You should have created robots. But You wanted to be chosen; therefore, You administered choice, free will. You will not like often what You feel, but the loyalty in the end will be unmatchable.’
He had to close His eyes, sometimes, tightly. His heart alarmingly hurt. A birthright worth no more than beef stew and bread? He lowered His head to His hands and did not want to watch the credits roll through after Jacob’s performance dressed in the skins of wild animals. Deceit stole forever, time and again. But the Lord God Almighty, the Master, the Maker and Creator of Heaven and Earth, the Provider, witnessed in awe, as His heart beat rapidly every time this mess He had created drew near. They made mistake after mistake, they broke everything they touched, disaster followed them wherever they traveled; but they returned to Him, they cried out to Him, they were clearly lost without His guidance and provision. They needed Him! Somehow, there had to be a scale of checks and balances because it felt very out-of-control to this Master for Whom perfection has no term. This had to be love, this emotion that even made His hair tingle. He had so much He wanted to give these beings and their nonsense emphaticallcouldn’t care.
Eternity continued to spiral through the heavens and the Creator could not wrap His mind around where this story should go, how it should end. His beings came and went from the story lines much like characters in a play. But the Creator loved them all, and His heart beat wildly in His chest, and simply, it seemed like He was serving them lessons and blessings on the same platter at every meal. They outsmarted one another, and thought they were outsmarting their Creator also, only to find the Serving of Humility or Loss or Brotherhood or Blessing on each day’s menu. Each lesson cost His humans but each choice of theirs cost Him dearly, remnants He would not replace, and with sadness, the Master stopped questioning the intent of this peculiar people’s hearts and instead questioned His own.
During the month of February,
come with me as we JOURNEY through
the greatest LOVE STORY ever written.
