Be Alone - Encounter God - Genesis 32-35

Genesis 32:22-24 (ESV Strong's)
Jacob Wrestles with God
22 The same night he arose and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23 He took them and sent them across the stream, and everything else that he had. 24 And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day.

Be Alone - Encounter God

No one likes to be alone.   The world spends millions and millions of dollars to make sure we are never alone.  We creating watering holes, entertainment venue, community centers and the like, to make sure we can “hangout” with others.   But, in the above passage we see that Jacob (soon to be renamed Israel), purposefully put his wives and family in one place and went to be alone.  In this solitary place Jacob comes face to face with God.   This is why those who organized the ESV Bible entitled this section, “Jacob Wrestles with God.”   We have no idea what that really means.   Here is one commentator’s words:

(UBC OT) The description of this wrestling match is intentionally enigmatic. The reader never finds out the identity of the wrestler. Furthermore, the ambiguous use of the pronouns in the Hebrew text deliberately conceals the course of the fight so that the reader feels with Jacob the deep mystery of his struggle with an ominous foe. Whose thigh was injured? Who wanted to end the fight? Who asked for the blessing? Although we come to suspect that Jacob was struggling with a heavenly being, possibly the angel of Yahweh, the narrator identifies the opponent simply as “a man” to stress that Jacob was fighting a real opponent.

The point of the “encounter” is that Jacob comes to the point of surrender with God.  The meeting is so powerful that the name change for Jacob becomes a symbol of his change of Character.   Those who want to have an encounter with God should be prepared to have their lives changed (see Isaiah in Isaiah 6; see Ezekiel in Ezekiel 1-4; see Paul on the Damascus Road in Acts 9; see the disciples on the road of Emmaus in Luke 24).   God wants us to have an encounter with Him that will change our lives.  That is what can happen when we are alone.  Even though we don’t want to be alone, God can use that time to draw us to Himself, change our character and bring us out the other side prepared to deal with the people in the world around us. That is what God did with Jacob. He changed his live and gave him a new way to handle his brother Esau, as well as the world around him.   God changes us when we are alone with Him!!