Genesis 32: 24-31
And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day. And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him. And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me. And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob. And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed. And Jacob asked him, and said, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there. And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved. And as he passed over Penuel the sun rose upon him, and he halted upon his thigh.
When you encounter the same passage of scripture, two days in a row, and in different settings, it's likely God is trying to tell you something.
So, I inquired of the Lord - "What is the meaning of this passage? What would you have me to know?" And here is my response from the Lord:
Jacob wrestled with a man, all night long. When the man says, "Let me go," Jacob refuses and does not succeed to the command, insisting rather that his contender bless him. When the man, who Jacob realizes is God Himself in the form of an angel, assigns him a name, he chooses, "Israel," meaning "Prince of God," saying: "for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed."
God acknowledges in this statement Jacob's power over men. Jacob, (meaning supplanter, schemer or trickster), who had manipulated his brother Esau's blessing for himself, and later dealt trickily with Laban the father of his wives, leaving him (just prior to this scene), a rich man with two wives and many possessions. Interestingly, Jacob at this moment of being named, "Prince of God," stands literally between both men he has prevailed over - Laban behind him, and Esau before him.
But why God's acknowledgment in the name of having prevailed, even, over God? Why did God not rebuke Jacob, saying, "I told you to let go and you did not heed"...the dislocated hip a minor consequence of refusing to hear the voice of God? And what does this fractured hip represent? Our inability to encounter God unscathed? The story itself perhaps a reflection on the necessity of struggle in order to have a real encounter with God? I asked, "What would have happened if Jacob had just, let go? Nothing? No blessing? No new name? No Israel?
It is as though God desired an Israel who possessed the tenacity of spirit to wrestle Him. One with the stamina to insist upon struggle all night until daybreak.
What good, for God's purposes for this world, is a servant (Israel) who gives up in the dark hour, who cannot sustain until dawn's rising? ...one who cannot bear a minor, yet painful, injury like an out of joint thigh bone? What good for God's purposes in this world is one who cannot prevail?
God met Jacob there on purpose. To show him and all Israel to come, that if you wrestle through the midnight hour, dawn comes; and with its rising, your blessing, and even more than you ask for - a whole new name.
"Princess of God," He calls me now, "for as a princess, you have power with God and with men, and prevail."
Selah
Interesting notes on the Hebrew meaning of the name Israel
On the Waterfront (classic movie clip)
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Monday, July 11, 2011
Settling into
I've been obsessively watching Oprah.com Behind the Scenes video clips for the last 48 hours. Suddenly, after over a year of no television in my home, I'm having a burning desire to watch things, anything. I didn't see a single episode of Oprah's final season, except the last 3 finale shows which I asked my mother to DVR for me so I could watch during a visit to Maryland for my birthday. But now, I've watched all this footage of her, with her producers, creating content for the monumental 25 year in the making finale season of episodes. It is quite riveting to see a woman like Oprah at work. Confessing she has no life outside of Harpo Studios, surprisingly cool about the end of a thing that has been her life for 25 years, watching everyone passionately work for her, truly believing they are changing the world with the content they produce. Everyone has an opinion about Oprah, and the more I watch, I have my own. But one of the most significant things I have learned from watching all of these videos, is something about the grace, strength, and wisdom Oprah exhibits, in keeping opinions about others, to herself. She appears to genuinely accept people for who they are. So I shall follow in her magnanimous footsteps, and just share something I learned from my Oprah meditation. (Yes, I can turn anything, even obsessive Oprah video clip watching, into a spiritual discipline ;)
My Oprah lesson is about journaling. There's a segment when the ladies of The View come to visit. They're all gathered in Oprah's office after taping the show and Oprah's showing Whoopi something she journaled about her back in their Color Purple days. Barbara Walters asks Oprah if she's always journaled, and Oprah says, "Yes. I've been journaling since I was 15." They're all fascinated by that. Not even Barbara Walters journals. And Oprah's fascinated by that. "How do you remember things? How did you write your book?" she asks Barbara.
I was fascinated by this similarity I share with Oprah...
My first ever journal entry is from 1991. I was 11 years old. What fascinates me more than the content of that particular journal, is the discipline I had to journal at that age. Almost every day there was an entry. Oh, it was just a short little paragraph, but an entry nonetheless. Here's a sample from today's date, July 11, 1991. It was another summer in Virginia at my grandparents country house by the Potomac River.
Dear Diary,
We went crabbing and caught 12. Then Granddaddy went again and caught about 7.
Bye,
Colleen Thomas
Lol.
Later, throughout my teen years, from about 1993-1998, I only have one journal. And most of the content is about being fat, trying to lose weight, complaining about my parents, friends, and boys I liked but never hooked up with.
After those years, my discipline increased. I began to fill one journal a year, one every 6 months...up to today. Now I average about one journal every two months.
And I began to see traces of my conversations with God emerge as the depth of the content increased.
Even Oprah admits that her 20's journals were all, "Woe is me" and obsessing about men. When I told my mother about my discovery of how life seemed to be from the perspective of my journals, compared to my actual memories of life at those periods of time (which, Thank God, is considerably more favorable), she shared a wisdom I gleaned from Oprah's confession. Mother said it's likely when we're young we tend to dwell on the have-nots. At those ages, I could only see what was happening to Me, unable to fully reflect on all of the nuances of feeling and experience that wisdom offers a more mature woman's perspective. When we're young, we are less likely to accept realities - that circumstances, good and bad, are there to grow us up; that the world doesn't revolve around us; that the purpose of being alive in God's world isn't to get everything we want.
Thank goodness I don't live with the mind of my teenage, 20-something self. And you know, as I write, I think what sparked such an intense interest in watching Oprah, was a similar sense of enjoyment I find being in the company of older women who are so much more settled in life. And not settled in a material sense of the word - that they've got their this and their that...but truly settled with life, with circumstances, no matter what has come. There are no regrets, life has been resolved, they've closed the book on worrying. They no longer view destiny as something to be controlled or manipulated. Rather, they have learned to accept all of life as destiny. Whatever dreams may...
As I reflected on another year coming, I experienced a noticeable settling. I was "at home" in Maryland with my parents...and at home in my heart with Life.
In my 20's I feared settling. It meant to me, giving up, forgetting my dreams. But I see I was limited in my understanding of its meaning. To settle does not just imply an end of a matter despite being wholly satisfied, like settling for something. Nor does it only imply giving up "the dream" for an ordinary, stable life, like settling down. No. To settle also can suggest a movement towards calmness or comfort...to become quiet in your soul. There is much beauty in that.
"Blessed are you when you are who you are," someone just preached to me. My journals teach me that.
No, I am not all I want to be yet. But I am rich in spirit. Because I am not living in fear that I'll never be all I want to be. And you know, I'll go one step further. Because my birthday revelation is even deeper than that. I'm not living in fear that if I am never all I want to be, I'll live in fear.
Now, that is peace beyond understanding.
Bye,
Colleen Thomas
My Oprah lesson is about journaling. There's a segment when the ladies of The View come to visit. They're all gathered in Oprah's office after taping the show and Oprah's showing Whoopi something she journaled about her back in their Color Purple days. Barbara Walters asks Oprah if she's always journaled, and Oprah says, "Yes. I've been journaling since I was 15." They're all fascinated by that. Not even Barbara Walters journals. And Oprah's fascinated by that. "How do you remember things? How did you write your book?" she asks Barbara.
I was fascinated by this similarity I share with Oprah...
My first ever journal entry is from 1991. I was 11 years old. What fascinates me more than the content of that particular journal, is the discipline I had to journal at that age. Almost every day there was an entry. Oh, it was just a short little paragraph, but an entry nonetheless. Here's a sample from today's date, July 11, 1991. It was another summer in Virginia at my grandparents country house by the Potomac River.
Dear Diary,
We went crabbing and caught 12. Then Granddaddy went again and caught about 7.
Bye,
Colleen Thomas
Lol.
Later, throughout my teen years, from about 1993-1998, I only have one journal. And most of the content is about being fat, trying to lose weight, complaining about my parents, friends, and boys I liked but never hooked up with.
After those years, my discipline increased. I began to fill one journal a year, one every 6 months...up to today. Now I average about one journal every two months.
And I began to see traces of my conversations with God emerge as the depth of the content increased.
Even Oprah admits that her 20's journals were all, "Woe is me" and obsessing about men. When I told my mother about my discovery of how life seemed to be from the perspective of my journals, compared to my actual memories of life at those periods of time (which, Thank God, is considerably more favorable), she shared a wisdom I gleaned from Oprah's confession. Mother said it's likely when we're young we tend to dwell on the have-nots. At those ages, I could only see what was happening to Me, unable to fully reflect on all of the nuances of feeling and experience that wisdom offers a more mature woman's perspective. When we're young, we are less likely to accept realities - that circumstances, good and bad, are there to grow us up; that the world doesn't revolve around us; that the purpose of being alive in God's world isn't to get everything we want.
Thank goodness I don't live with the mind of my teenage, 20-something self. And you know, as I write, I think what sparked such an intense interest in watching Oprah, was a similar sense of enjoyment I find being in the company of older women who are so much more settled in life. And not settled in a material sense of the word - that they've got their this and their that...but truly settled with life, with circumstances, no matter what has come. There are no regrets, life has been resolved, they've closed the book on worrying. They no longer view destiny as something to be controlled or manipulated. Rather, they have learned to accept all of life as destiny. Whatever dreams may...
As I reflected on another year coming, I experienced a noticeable settling. I was "at home" in Maryland with my parents...and at home in my heart with Life.
In my 20's I feared settling. It meant to me, giving up, forgetting my dreams. But I see I was limited in my understanding of its meaning. To settle does not just imply an end of a matter despite being wholly satisfied, like settling for something. Nor does it only imply giving up "the dream" for an ordinary, stable life, like settling down. No. To settle also can suggest a movement towards calmness or comfort...to become quiet in your soul. There is much beauty in that.
"Blessed are you when you are who you are," someone just preached to me. My journals teach me that.
No, I am not all I want to be yet. But I am rich in spirit. Because I am not living in fear that I'll never be all I want to be. And you know, I'll go one step further. Because my birthday revelation is even deeper than that. I'm not living in fear that if I am never all I want to be, I'll live in fear.
Now, that is peace beyond understanding.
Bye,
Colleen Thomas
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