God is constantly working to degrade the old carnal, fleshly nature in us and release the life of His Son.
39 I did not bring you animals torn by wild beasts; I bore the loss myself. And you demanded payment from me for whatever was stolen by day or night (Tough conditions). 40 This was my situation: The heat consumed me in the daytime and the cold at night, and sleep fled from my eyes. 41 It was like this for the twenty years I was in your household. …and you changed my wages ten times. Genesis 31
Jacob spent twenty difficult years working for his uncle Laban, God’s character school for the one who’d taken his brother’s birthright and blessing. God used ADVERSE CIRCUMSTANCES to mould and shape the father of His people.
17 As iron sharpens iron,
so one person sharpens another. Proverbs 27
In the rough and tumble of daily living God is preparing the Believer for His plan and purpose for our lives. Others go through similar trials without the protective Hand of the Lord on them.
24 So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. 25 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. 26 Then the man said, ‘Let me go, for it is daybreak.’
But Jacob replied, ‘I will not let you go unless you bless me.’ Genesis 32
Jacob was all alone in the night and wrestled with a man until daybreak. Jacob was determined to get a blessing, he struggled with this man all through the night. Sometimes it feels like we’re ‘wrestling in the darkness’ but if we persevere and push through the struggles God can bless us. But part of the blessing brought Jacob to a place of absolute weakness, with a dislocated hip, before he met his brother Esau with his 400 men.
God uses the affairs of life to mould and shape us, but at times He may touch something deep in our lives so that we’re left with no choice but to depend on Him. Jacob, now Israel, had struggled with man and God, but before he set foot in the Promised Land again his physical strength was greatly weakened.
The moment when we feel at our weakest may be the moment when we’re closest to stepping into God’s fullest plan for our lives!
God bless and keep you today.