Day 8: Jacob

Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome. — Genesis 32:28

Jacob was no stranger to uncertainty. He fled his home as a young man, leaving behind a trail of deception and a brother who wanted him dead. On the way out, he had no plan, just fear and a stone for a pillow. Years later, he returned with wealth, family and position but still no clarity about how things would turn out. Would Esau greet him with a sword or a hug? Would everything unravel again?

The night before meeting Esau, Jacob was left alone. And in that loneliness, God came – not in comforting words or angelic light but in the form of a mysterious man who wrestled with him till daybreak. Jacob, the struggler, the deceiver, the survivor, meets the God who struggles with him. And when the sun rises, Jacob is changed. He walks away limping but with a new name: Israel, “the one who wrestles with God.” His identity is no longer defined by fear, schemes or the uncertainties ahead but by his encounter with the living God.

Centuries later, another story of fear and uncertainty unfolded. A child was born, Jesus, son of Mary. But even before His first birthday, He was being hunted. The ruler of the land, King Herod, sought to kill Him. And for a moment, the story seems fragile, just one sword away from ending in tragedy. We often forget how terrifying this must have felt for Mary and Joseph. If we didn’t know how the story ends, we would assume the worst. After all, what chance does a poor family with a newborn have against a king?

But the same God who knew Jacob’s full story, the beginning and the end, was also in control of Jesus’s life. He was not absent from the danger; He was present in it. In fact, the one being hunted was none other than God Himself, clothed in fragile flesh. And that child would one day provide not just physical escape but eternal salvation.

Jacob’s story and Jesus’s infancy reveal something profound about the nature of our God. He meets us in our fears, wrestles with us in the dark and walks with us when the future is uncertain. And even when everything seems to hang by a thread – our safety, our calling, our very lives – He remains sovereign.

In our context today, we know this tension well. Many people in Central Asia (and around the world) live under the cloud of uncertainty. The last few years have shown how quickly peace can be shattered, whether by war in Ukraine, conflict in Israel and Gaza or economic and political upheaval elsewhere. Entire nations have felt what Jacob must have felt: everything could change overnight.

But Jacob’s limp and Jesus’s escape remind us: God is not only the God of the mountaintop but also of the valley, not just of clarity but of chaos. He knows your story, beginning to end, even when you do not. And because He has walked through danger Himself, He is not asking us to trust Him blindly. He is asking us to trust Him deeply.

This Advent, may we learn to walk with a limp like Jacob, not because we are broken beyond hope but because we have encountered the God who wrestled with us and named us His own. May we remember the fragility of Jesus’s early days not as a sign of weakness but as proof that our Saviour stepped fully into our uncertainty. And may we find in Him the courage to trust, even when the way ahead is unclear.

He knows your story. And He is not done with it yet.