Trying to Live Wholly Holy

I will be on the internet for a minimal amount of time for the next day or two or three or so.  The reason is because of the things that have happened today.  It all started at church.  My pastor was talking about Jacob wrestling with God in Genesis 32.  He told the background story of how Jacob got there.  Jacob was down to nothing.   He had nothing.  He sent his family away so they wouldn’t die.  He had just given loads of sheep (about today’s equivalent of $500,000 worth) to Esau so that he could return home.  He was alone.  Then he wrestled with God.  They wrestled for a long time then God touched Jacob’s thigh and his hipbone/socket/joint (whatever it was) was pulled out of the socket.  Yet Jacob still didn’t let go.  He kept saying, “I won’t let go unless you bless me.”   You know, it’s awful how we fully rely on God only when He’s all we have left.  Like, why is it so hard to honor him when we have stuff?  Anyway, Jacob would not let go.  So God asked Jacob what his name was.  Jacob said “Jacob.”

But the interesting thing about this, which is where I was hit pretty hard, is that names weren’t just names back then.  Names defined who you were.  Jacob meant “trickster, deceiver, liar” So when Jacob said that he was Jacob.  He was saying, “GOD, I AM A TRICKSTER, A LIAR, A DECEIVER, A LOWLY SINNER.”  The way my pastor had preached it was amazing.  He had so much emotion.  Like, I could see Jacob in that situation perfectly.  I heard the desperation in his voice.  I heard how much he needed help.  I heard how badly he wanted God. 

Then God blessed him.  He was no longer Jacob, but Israel.  It was his fresh start.  He was no longer known as those horrible names.  He was the one who had “struggled with God and with men and overcome.”  What a name!  I mean, imagine that being your name.  You have overcome these horrible things of your past.  Your struggles and all, you are new!  You get a new start.  How wonderful is that?

All of this to say, I feel like Jacob right now.  I feel like a _________, ____________, ___________, ____________, and the list goes on and on.  You can fill in the blanks for yourself.  I’m tired of being known as these things.  It may not be my name, and people may not call me these things.  But I know what my sins are.  I know how bad of a person I am.  They haunt me to this very day.  But now, I have a new name.  Which I will call, “My Israel.”  That phrase isn’t biblical.  But I feel that it reflects my new name that I don’t know.  It represents the change in every saved individual.  Everyone has his own Israel.  And we won’t know them until we get to Heaven.  But just knowing that I have my Israel is a wonderful way to remember the glory, mercy, grace, and all of the wonderful characteristics of God.

I have sinned.  I am a sinner.  But I have a new name.  I am no longer defined by who I was.  I am new. 

My Israel.

*Added later*

http://skripture-sketches.tumblr.com/post/932822877/genesis-32