Jacob: Knowing and Being Known

I have found the story of Jacob so very meaningful, layers of discovery and help and inspiration. I thought I would share this musing fortheloveofit.

Years ago I received a small gift book entitled “Find Yourself, Give Yourself.” I am sure it had solid grounding in Scripture and experience, helping folks be at peace with who God made them to be and offering that person to others in the economy of life. Well and good and right, as far as it goes which, in truth, may be far enough. But it came to mind today as I reflected on the path of life and the oft-heard expression, “I need to find myself.” Nothing is more true to the human experience I suppose. The trials of life are nothing if not a revealing of the person, and they reveal something else about us: we do not want to be revealed.

This is normal privacy, to be sure. Who wants their secret sins to be known, their strivings and failings, their fumbled endeavors? Though common to the human lot, they are shameful and hard to reckon with. Studying one's self easily descends into painful subjectivity: no mooring, no point of reference, no grounding. Truth is, the only way we gain any traction in “finding ourselves” is with God, and He is the One doing the finding.

This bears out in all of our stories but perhaps none better than the gift we receive in the biblical stories, especially that of Jacob. One tends to think Bible characters are perfect, cast in marble. And so we sometimes contort the story to fit some ideal. But in contrast to the the ideal, we get reality, and this makes the Old Testament so right and good and necessary. There is no sugar- coating. God reveals who we are in ways plain and bracing.

Jacob was a mess, caught in a mess, and he lived out the mess. Who plays favorites with their kids? Who concocts schemes to fool her husband with the favored child? Who connives to steal the most important gift in the family? We see this messed up home as it is: uncovered, uncensored, real. God reveals it to the world, for our learning, for our help, for our possible peace, for our own walk in life and effort to come to grips with who we are.

Not all homes are this way, thanks be to God. Many are beautiful and solid, the messes dealt with in purity and godliness that is real and touched everywhere by the self-giving God of grace and truth. And yet none can escape the necessary revealing that comes when we walk with God, and there is a mess to be reckoned with in all of our lives.

All this Jacob discovered as he ran from his troubles. At Bethel he had a dream, God revealing, drawing close, drawing Jacob closer. For his part Jacob simply was, very little filter. That is grace when it happens, and Jacob needed that grace. In the presence of God he was embarrassingly unaware of his hubris: “Well, Lord” he said, in my summary paraphrase of the scene in Genesis 28, “I am glad for your offer of blessing and so if you will keep your side of the bargain, I will keep mine.”
Jacob the deceiver makes a promise to God and one wonders if the heavens crashed with a cosmic laugh. Jacob was getting way more than he bargained for. He didn't really know himself, but God knew him and the game was on. Jacob thought he was on his own adventure, glad God joined in for the ride. But it was God's ride, and His purposes would prevail.

Jacob's story is rich in reality. Falling in love, bargaining for a wife and a life, receiving life's comeuppance as deception takes its revenge, bargaining again, working harder than he ever intended, running when it was finally right, wed into a concocted family of eye-crossing difficulty: two wives, two mistresses, many children. The family mess had compounded and Jacob's world was filled to the brim with it.

Looming in the background, of course, is his aggrieved brother, Esau, the one twice cheated by twin brother and mother. Some suggest even his father was in on it, knowing something was amiss but playing along anyway. This reveals the tragedy that tinges all of life, often spilling out in devastating ways. But Another was in the background, larger than all. God's promise to Abraham meant He would never stop His pursuit, always hold His part of the bargain, do whatever required to reveal, walk with, redeem.

And so we see Jacob coming to the reckoning, the pivotal point, the famous wrestling match at Peniel. God was discovering him, showing who he was, giving him a new name, a new promise, a new character. This is the path of God. Our eyes are opened, even in the wrestling match, and there is a blazing presence, a spoken word, a touch that both wounds and heals. “I will not let you go until you bless me.” I think God loved Jacob's determination, was in fact drawing it out, making it holy when in the past it had been all self-serving. It's as if God were saying, “I see how determined you are and I see we are never going to finish by daylight. I will end this – I will heal you, change you, give you a limp, give you a new name.”

The next day Jacob knew he was known by God and he went in that peace. He went from reluctant leader and background conniver to one who laid his life out for his family no matter the cost. He walked into a miracle of grace when Esau forgave all and dared to love the one who had so hurt him. In time Jacob became the father of the redeemer of the known world when his son Joseph saved Egypt and the surrounding nations from famine. And he is known today as a patriarch, a father of the faithful, a life in which God showed what can be done with a life born in a mess.
I believe the story of Jacob is our own. God reveals us to ourselves when we can handle it, through pain and real life, in ways we often cannot imagine are the hand of God. But he does it all the same, relentless in his love and redeeming work. And in time we know all we have to offer is we ourselves and that is, after all, all He asks. As Annie Dillard put it, “Jesus washed their very feet and toes and in so doing said, 'It is alright after all to be human.'”

In God's way and time He makes us what He wants us to be. Grace in a moment making possible? Indeed, surely that is right. Grace over time, revealing, shaping, molding, bringing many sons and daughters to glory (Hebrews 2:10)? Yes! In that very text the example of our Lord is given as one who Himself was shaped through suffering. 

"Find yourself?" Maybe, but never on the path or with the result we might think. It is God who knows us, works with us, cares more than we ever comprehend. Today, again, let go, love Him for the wrestling, know He knows you, feel his wounding and healing touch, and rise to walk with Him in the re-making of your life.