That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female servants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till 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 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.’

-Genesis 32:22-30

The Most important events in your life, you will face alone.

  

God will pursue you but never overpower you.

  

So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till 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.’

-Genesis 32:24-26

Don’t you realize that more than anything people want to worship what’s established beyond dispute? Instead of taking possession of man’s freedom, you increased it. You desired man’s free love, that he should follow you freely, enticed and taken captive by you. By resisting Satan’s temptations to override human freedom, you made yourself far too easy to reject. Fortunately, the church recognized the error and corrected it relying on miracle, mystery, and authority, ever since.

-Ivan Karamazov, The Grand Inquisitor

We don’t know how to get people to show compassion. We tried to raise money for the children of Chernobyl, but the average Russian citizen would rather spend their money on drink. How do you reform and motivate people. How do you get them to be good? Seventy-four years of communism proved that beyond all doubt, goodness cannot be legislated from the top down, no matter how many threats are made, it must grow internally from the bottom up.

-Pravda, Russian Newspaper

The incarnation means that whatever reason God chose to allow us to fall into the ramifications of the human condition, (suffering and the subject of sorrow and death) He nonetheless had the honesty and courage to take His own medicine. He himself has gone through the whole of human experience and the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and the lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair, and death. He was born in poverty and suffered infinite pain all for us and thought it well worth His while.

-Dorothy Sayers

You desired man’s free love, that he should follow you freely, enticed and taken captive by you.

-Ivan Karamazov, The Grand Inquisitor

God cannot be tamed.

  

Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb.

-John 11:38

God has to wrestle us into a transformed life rather than comfort us into a transformed life.

  

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.’

-Genesis 32:28

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.’

-Genesis 32:28

Then the man said, ‘Let me go, for it is daybreak.’

-Genesis 32:26

  

"These inward trials I employ,

From pride and self to set you free.

To break the schemes of earthly joy

That thou may find thine all in me."

-John Newton

  

So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak.

-Genesis 32:24

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 32:26

Then the man said, ‘Let me go, for it is daybreak.’

-Genesis 32:26

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 (prevailed).’

-Genesis 32:28

When the man (God) saw that he could not overpower him…

-Genesis 32:25

Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!

-Philippians 2:6-8

Are you waiting for God to dazzle you?

  

Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, ‘Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.’ He answered, ’A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.’

-Matthew 12:38-40

You desired man’s free love, that he should follow you freely, enticed and taken captive by you.

-Ivan Karamazov, The Grand Inquisitor

Are you waiting for someone else to fight the battle of your life for you?

  

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

-Philippians 2:9-11

The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip.

-Genesis 32:31

  

  

  

  

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