FACE TO FACE

So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying,
“It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared”.

Gen.32:30

We saw Jacob’s journey begin as a young man at Bethel. It was the place of Jacob’s ladder that marked the beginning of God’s plan for Jacob. God’s plan was more than just Jacob meeting God, the Lord would not be satisfied with anything less than face to face. The Lord wanted total transformation. That first awakening in Jacob’s life revealed to Jacob how much he needed the Lord, it wasn’t until years later that Jacob began to reflect the change that God was after in his life. The Lord met Jacob as he was in his youth, a plotter and schemer trying to gain his inheritance by his own striving and trickery. After years had passed with God dealing in Jacob’s life the transformation was beginning to show. There was something of a completion that night as Jacob wrestled with God and saw God face to face. Here are some thoughts from Andrew Murray on today’s text.

“How often Christians complain that they have little experience of what it means to meet with God in prayer and feel the light of His countenance upon them. They have tried their best, but it seems to no avail. Their thoughts in the inner chamber bring only self-reproach and shame.

And yet your Father in heaven is not only willing but strongly desires that the light of His countenance shall rest upon you. Perhaps the words of this text may help to assure you of God’s desire. Yes, your inner chamber can also be called Peniel, because it is the place where God wants to meet you face-to-face. Only there will you realize what it is to meet with God, to see His face, and to feel how certain and blessed it is that His love rests upon you.”
At first, Jacob saw God just as his source of provision. That’s good, but not good enough. The Lord wants to be more than that. Our prayer becomes more powerful when it becomes a passion to seek Him and not just to get what He can give us. It is that kind of wrestling with God that leaves us changed. We begin to see that our life itself can become a prayer. Jacob left that place with a new identity, he was now called Israel, the prince of God. He also left with a limp, he would never be the same again.