Crippled to be Blessed:

"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". Genesis 32:24-30, KJV.
There are times in our lives when we get caught up in situations
from which deliverance seems impossible such as sickness,
financial problems, relationship problems, job issues, emotional and
psychological problems, etc. Things do not always turn out the way
we expect. The people of the world advice us to do this and that,
they criticize us for being weak, foolish or useless because to the
world, a Christian looks weak. When you are a Christian, God
makes you weak, so that the only option you have is to make God
your strength and wisdom in everyday life. The way the people of
the world deal with their problems is different from a way a
believer in Christ deals with his/her problems. The people of the
world depend on other people or their own self wisdom or they
appease their gods to overcome their problems but everything
comes short. When we give our life to Jesus and follow His Will in

our life, God lets some problems come in our life where we feel
stuck. During these times, family and friends will either desert us
or are incapable of helping us out of our problems. God allows
problems in our so that He can test us whether we still trust Him in
our hardships and to make us learn to depend on God. Satan uses
the circumstances and people in our life to attack us. He
overwhelms us with fear and torments us. It is during these times
that we sometimes regret to have followed God. We look at the
people of this world going about their life with ease and get
offended at God for putting us through hardships. But irrespective
of our circumstances and our feelings, we have to trust God, for He
is our only Help. When things go wrong in a Christians life the
first thing we do is blame the Lord, murmur against Him and
sometimes turn our backs on Him instead of running to Him for
safety. Some of us, because of the hardness of our hearts, often do
not respond to God even in adverse circumstances.
If you are a true Christian, God will bring you to a place of utter
helplessness. Jacob wrestled with God and God crippled him; his
final weapon was gone. If all his plans and strength had failed, at
least he could have run; but now, he couldnt even run. God brought
Jacob to the place of utter, absolute, complete brokenness and
dependence. Then He blessed Jacob. For the first time in his life,
Jacob got a hold of the Lord. He said, Oh God, I need You. God, I
will not let you go except You bless me. God had been waiting to
hear those words for so long, and at that moment, something
wonderful took place. The Angel of the Lord asked Jacob for his
name. God knew it, but He wanted Jacob to confess his name which
further meant liar, cheater, crook, fraud, schemer, and deceiver.
Then, God gave him a new name, Israel, which means, a prince of
God. He became a prince with God because he finally came to the
end of himself. You see, God wanted to bless Jacob, not hurt him.
God crippled him that he might crown him. God broke him that he
might bless him.
Do you know why many of us are not yet truly blessed? We have not
yet been truly broken. Men throw broken things away, but God
never uses anything until he first breaks it. Youll never show me
anybody who has been or will be mightily used of God who has not

been broken. There is no blessedness without brokenness. The rest

of his life, Jacob had to use a crutch. This wasnt just something
that could be fixed and put back. He had to have a staff to lean
on. And Jacob learned to lean on God. Jacob had finally learned to
lean. He realized that he was stronger leaning than he was
standing on his own two feet.
What Jacob didnt know, and what we often dont realize in
situations like that, is how God goes about helping us. What we
have in mind is that God would somehow remove our problem or
make our enemy go away. But God doesnt do it that way. God
answered Jacobs prayer for protection from Esau by wrestling with
Jacob until He left him limping as he approached his brother. His
plan had been that if Esau attacked one camp, Jacob (in the other
camp) could escape. But now he couldnt run from Esau if he tried!
He was totally dependent on the Lord.
The way God helps us is by breaking us of our inherent selfdependence so that we lean totally on Him. In that context, we can
properly receive His blessings. Our problem, like Jacobs, is that all
too often we want to use God and His blessings to further our own
ends. All his life Jacob had been using God and people to get what
he wanted for himself. But now God brings Jacob to see that you
dont use God-- you submit to Him. When we submit to God, He
blesses us.
God must break us of our self-dependence so that He can
bless us as we cling to Him in our brokenness.
Brokenness is the path to blessing. Before God can use a man
greatly, He must break him, because we all have a built-in
propensity to trust in ourselves.
Often our greatest victories come out of the ashes of our greatest
defeats. As soon as Jacob was crippled, he was able to hang on to
the Lord for dear life. He knew now that if God didnt bless him, he
had no hope. He couldnt trust in himself any longer, because he
was crippled. He had to cling to the Lord, and in clinging to the

Lord in his brokenness, Jacob received the blessing he had been

scheming to get all his life.
Just like He crippled Jacob, He will cripple you in life, so that the
only support you have is God's Hands and not human hands. Then
He will bless you. He will remove all the things in your life that you
depend on and He will bring you to the end of yourself so that you
have no one to depend on except for God.
So if youre thinking, Im not a terrible sinner. In fact, Im a
basically good person, God may have to let you go through some
serious problems, until you see your desperate need for Christ. He
came to save sinners, not pretty good people. Sometimes God has
to let you hit the bottom, where you see that you cannot do
anything to save yourself. Its when God cripples us and we see how
weak we really are that we cling to Him until He blesses us.
If we come into the proper relationship with God, of clinging to Him
in our brokenness, then we have power with Him. We prevail with
Him who has prevailed over us. And since God is over all, if we can
prevail with Him, then we prevail over all others. As Jacob went
limping to face Esau, he was more powerful in Gods strength and
his own weakness than he ever could have been in his own
scheming and strength.
So above all else, devote yourself to seeking Gods blessing. When
youve got that, youve got everything! When you prevail with God
through His prevailing over you, He will take care of your problems
and enemies. Then youre not using God to solve your problems;
youre submitting to God and clinging by faith to Him. Weak in
themselves, the Israelites could lay hold of Gods strength, and no
one could prevail against them.
Does every limp in your life remind you of your weakness? Does it
make you conscious of the evil within you? Does it bring to bear
upon your conscious mind that which baffles, beats, and blisters
your personal life?
God opens heaven and blesses us when we lay our head down on a
cold, hard, rough, unkind, unsympathetic hostile stone.
The earlier we learn this great spiritual principle, the better off we
are in life.

When the God of Jacob is our refuge, He puts His hand on us to

teach us great spiritual lessons, to wound us,cripple us, in order
that He might give us a deeper healing. He cripples to make us
stronger.
God removed all of Jacobs false securities that night and made him
depend upon Him alone. The God Of Jacob became his refuge.
Jacob had contended with men and had prevailed. That had been
his story all through, and the effect of his successes upon his
character had been that of making him more self-reliant, and in
that measure forgetful that these very successes had resulted from
the fact that all his life was arranged and ruled by God. That was
the lesson he had to learn in order that he might be delivered from
a self-sufficiency which must inevitably have ruined him. That
explains all the story of that night. God crippled him to crown him,
revealed his weakness to teach him the secret of strength, defeated
him that he might find victory.
As we go through life we don't like where we are and we see where
we want to be and we make our plan by drawing a straight line
between those two points BUT the straight line never happens. We
want to get into the right school, we want the right job, we want
the right title, we want marriage, we want a family, we want to
have more impact BUT it's not happening. But maybe that's not
God's plan yet. God is leading but sometimes the best way is not
the shortest or the quickest way. You wanted to go the quick and
short way and God is leading you the long way. Our world says, the
quicker the better. Fast food, fast cars, fast computers, next week faster computers. But God is not in a hurry. The quickest way isn't
always the best way.
Are you in the middle of a big problem, a crisis? Are you overcome
with fear? No matter what your pain, your grief, your loss, your
disappointment, your need is, Jesus is sufficient.
If you are a Christian God has a special interest a special
commitment, and a special love for you! There will always be
trouble. Nobody is exempt. Know that no trouble comes into your

life with out Gods permission. If God has allowed it, then He has a
greater purpose to glorify His name. When we are too weak to
deliver ourselves, God delivers us and we become a testimony of
Gods favour and blessing over our lives. So dont lose hope. A
Christian has hope even in the hardest of trials because we serve a
God who delivers and sets captives free. Your sorrow will turn to
joy and your darkness into light. But you need to wait on Gods
timing and submit yourself to God. In His time, He will deliver you.
God teaches us many spiritual lessons during times of adversity.
Adversity changes us either for our best or worse. A person who
trusts God during adversity will be transformed to be like Jesus.
It doesn't mean we will be perfect. As long as we are in this
fallen world, we will have short comings, but adversity softens our
heart towards other people and cultivates in us compassion,
kindness, love and patience for others. It teaches us many precious
lessons. But when a person hardens his heart towards God and gets
offended by God during times of adversity, he becomes even more
hard hearted, cruel, mean and bitter towards other people. "For
godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented
of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death". 2 Corinthians 7:10,
KJV. We may not be great, strong, wise people but God is still God!"
No matter what, God is still God, and we can still trust Him to
deliver us.
God delivers just the right people! Are you one of His people?

Have you recognized your total helplessness before God and

accepted Gods payment for your sins, the Blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ.

Have you placed your faith in Christ alone for Salvation and
allowed Him to give you a home in Heaven and a changed life
now?
If you have done these things you are one of Gods people! John
1:12-13, John 10:27-30, KJV.