Just call me Isreal

I read a blog over on Mel's site today and I started to write a reply in the little comment box. My reply became this twistedly long blog post which I didn't want to subject her to in the comment section of her blog so I decided to post it here.

Mel was talking about how in her authentic relationship with God (and that of several people she knows) she struggles with doubting God and then feeling like she's making God "prove himself"... if you want to know more click the link HERE.

So I immediately started thinking about the story of Jacob in Genesis. Jacob had lied to his brother and was planning on going back to make ammends with him. Just before he got there he stopped alone alongside a stream and started to wrestle "a man" (no one knows if this is God or an angel but it was a biblical man with the power to bless him).

Jacob struggled all night and in the morning the man knocked Jacob's hip out of joint and told Jacob to let him go but Jacob wouldn't. Jacob kept wrestling. The man asked Jacob his name and when Jacob told him he told Jacob... "no longer...now you will be known as Isreal which means God wrestler".

Jacob begged the man to bless him before he let him go and kept asking the mans name but the man would not tell him. In the end the man blessed him, Isreal (Jacob) was let go to go talk to his brother and he limped off to do his task from God.

He named the place Peniel because it means God's face and he said in that place "he saw God and lived to tell the story". (Now if you want the exact story you can click HERE which will take you to the Biblegateway verses for Genesis 32:22-32)

I'm a lot like Jacob. I think we all are. We have this task in front of us and we struggle with either wanting desperately to know we are blessed before we move on or wanting desperately to know more about our relationship with God and his plan for us before we can take another step in our journey.

The thing is, in this bible story we learn that God knows that in our authentic relationship with him we will come to points in our journey and we will struggle. Some of those struggles will change us (Jacob got a new name and a limp) but in the end we will know more about ourselves and God (even if it's not what we expected to know- Jacob never learned the name of the person he was wrestling with but he was blessed).

God expects us to be human. He expects us to make choices and he even expects us to struggle over what choices to make. God knows we won't always be comfortable with our relationship with him. It is human nature *just like Mel says in her blog*.

But where my opinion of human nature differs from some is that I don't think God wants us to feel guilty about being human. God's entire existence is constant proof that he wants us to desire to know him and love him. And he wants a restored relationship with us... that's what he calls it "a relationship" and for those of us in any type of relationship (marraige, friendship, love, family, hate) you know that the struggle to understand and know each other is ever changing.

God uses those changes *just like our friends and family* to know us deeper, to understand us more, to reveal to us the desires of his heart, and to show us how the desires of our hearts can reflect his love to others.

God would rather call us Isreal than take us to a place where we have no relationship with us.

So for now... he can call me Isreal whenever he wants.