The author John Green says that, “the universe is not a wish-granting factory,” but I think it is only human to want it to be. How much simpler could life be if we could wish for things to go our way? Wish for that job, for a family member to get better, for life to go back the way that it was. But the universe is not a wish granting factory, so we struggle like Jacob struggled.
What I like most about Jacob is how messy his story is. It strikes me as incredibly relatable. He struggles with family, he wants to get ahead, he falls in love and even that ends up complicated. I can’t say that I’ve experienced everything Jacob has, but one moment of his life that I continue to resonate with is what happened with Jacob at Peniel, the place he wrestled with God.
Something about Jacob’s willingness to wrestle appeals to me. Maybe they could have talked it out? Maybe Jacob was ready to fight because he was going to meet his older brother and was expecting a fight to happen? After all he was the same Jacob who conned his brother Esau out of his birthright over a bowl of stew. Genesis records that, when he heard news of Esau coming to meet him, Jacob was distressed and greatly afraid. When we can see the consequences of our actions coming to meet us I think we all feel the same way.
We don’t know how Jacob got into this wrestling match; we only know that it happened and it lasted until daybreak. Locked in a tense struggle Jacob says he will not let go unless he gets his blessing. The way I see it, Jacob wants security. He wants assurance that he and his family will be blessed and taken care of. How relatable and human is that? To want to know, to want the assurance that we’re going to be okay.
And so Jacob holds on, even wounded he holds on.
The most reassuring part of this story to me is that Jacob struggles. He continues to struggle and his life truly is a blessing all the same: Jacob, the father of the twelve tribes of Israel. And out of his lineage comes Jesus. The blessing that Jacob received multiplied and carried down through generations after him. The blessing he received that night was far more than he could ever wish or imagine for himself.
The blessing of Jacob’s story happens quickly for us as readers but takes Jacob’s whole life for him to see it unfold. What matters most to me is this: A messy life is still a blessed one.
Even if we cannot see the blessings yet. It is hard to see them when we are in the middle of our mess. In the middle of our anxiety and worry, there is still a blessing coming.
That is my hope for us this Advent season, that our lives turn out to be a blessing that we cannot begin to fathom, because it is so much bigger than ourselves.
Emily Cortez is the assistant editor of Humans of Adventism.