September 12, 2024, Limping but Blessed!
Last week I was stricken with severe pain and swelling in my left leg just above the knee level. The pain was so intense that by Saturday night I thought I would not be able to attend church the next morning. When the sun rose, I got up and got dressed for church. I did not feel like going. I was limping but I felt the need to draw nearer to His presence.
“The sun was rising as Jacob left Peniel, and he was limping because of the injury to his hip” (Genesis 32:31 NLT).
Limping but Blessed!
In Genesis 32, Jacob feared an encounter with his brother Esau whose birthright he had stolen. At the same time, he had already seen that God was orchestrating his life’s events. Still, he was terrified when he heard that Esau was coming in his direction with an army of 400 men. But he had enough sense to pray.
But wait! In response to his prayer, he found himself being “tackled” in the darkness of the night by a man he could not readily identify. He wrestled with the man until the breaking of dawn. Then the man did a strange thing. Although it looked like Jacob had won the match, the man reached out and simply touched the hollow of his thigh causing it to be out of joint.
Jacob knew then that this was no ordinary man! When the man said, “Let me go,” Jacob said, “Not until You bless me.” In other words, if You can touch me and cause me to walk with a limp, You must also have the power to bless me, not to mention that You could have destroyed me at any point during the night.
Some folks get angry with God when trouble comes, or they get tackled and find themselves limping. They abruptly turn away from Him or start to slowly drift away. But Jacob clung to the Man (the angel of the LORD, Jesus) even more tightly! He understood that the One who has the power to make you weak also has the power to make you strong if you draw nearer and hold more tightly to Him in your difficulties and weakness.
I looked at my text messages before getting in the car to leave for church last Sunday morning and saw a message asking me to do the prayer for the service that morning. The first words out of my mouth when I walked on the stage and approached the pulpit were, “I’m limping like Jacob, but I’m also blessed like Jacob!” And now I’m more blessed. I’m healed! I can run and jump! If you have to limp, remember that you are also blessed! And ‘it doesn’t matter how you feel, God is still worthy to be praised’!!!
Focus Quote: “That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:10 NIV).
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Reminders: I would love to hear from you!!! If you would like to respond to any of my thoughts, share a praise report, a prayer request or share something I can include in the next weekly focus, please just shoot me an email or text me at the number below.
Project 2024: “If My people who are called by my name would humble themselves and pray…”
Also, please do not neglect to VOTE in November!
And please continue to join us at 5:14 p.m. each day as we pause to pray.
“Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us” (1 John 5:14).