The Limp

 "Now the sun rose upon him just as he crossed over Penuel, and he was limping on his thigh." Genesis 32:31 ....."The eternal question is, 'What is God trying to do in and through me by way of suffering?'.....Our 'pearl of great price' may be evidenced only when men see us walking with a limp." Jamie Buckingham

People have been trying to come to grips with the question of suffering for as long as the human race has existed after its fall. None more so than those who follow Christ. For the believer, the one who follows and believes in a good and loving God, trying to understand why God allows it into our lives is perhaps the greatest question we will ever have. Why does He allow the wilderness of suffering to come upon us? Perhaps we need to ask a deeper question. The question Buckingham asks. What is He trying to do in and through us in the wilderness of suffering?

Scripture says that rain falls on the just and upon the unjust. Believer or unbeliever, we will not escape the reality of suffering in this fallen world. Nowhere has He promised those who follow Him that we would. Indeed, Christ promised us that we would join Him in the fellowship of His sufferings, and that He would use our wilderness sufferings to transform us and draw us ever more deeply into Him. He is the "pearl of great price," and we lay hold of Him best through our time in the wilderness and the pain we may experience there.

Genesis 32 contains the account of Jacob's wrestling with God at the place he named Peniel. Jacob was ever a trickster, a schemer, and a manipulator. He'd tricked his brother Esau out of his inheritance, and now after many years, he was returning to his homeland, and his brother Esau was coming to meet him. Terrified, Jacob formed a plan to try and appease a brother he believed was intent on killing him. He sent everyone ahead of him while he remained at the stream Jabbok. In the place, the Lord appeared to him, and he wrestled with Him till the dawn. In the midst of the struggle, God touched his hip, and it was dislocated. Jacob continued to cling to Him, crying he would not let go until He blessed him. At that point, the Lord changed his name from Jacob to Israel, saying, "You have striven with both God and men and have prevailed." He prevailed by losing, In his wrestling, he was wrestling with himself as much as with God. Jacob, who sought to control all of his life's happenings, surrendered to God all that was his life. In surrender, he prevailed. So will we, and most often, our surrender will only come about as we walk the path of suffering...in our wilderness. That is where we find the pearl of great price. That is where we discover the deep places of who He is, and who we are. Almost always, it is the wilderness alone that kills our "inner Jacob."

When that happens, it is then we display to the world the evidence of having found that pearl; the "limp" that we now walk with. The limp that offers proof of our surrender to Him, of our total dependence on Him, of His having full hold of our lives. Many have mocked our faith by calling it a "crutch." In a sense it is, but not at all in the way that they seek to demean it. He is the One we lean on, depend on, and trust, to bring us through every wilderness and every degree of suffering. Our Lord Christ called Himself "the man of sorrows," and walked in surrender to His Father. In all of His sorrows, He triumphed, and His resurrection was the proof. He bears the scars of His suffering and they are proof of His prevailing. So shall our scars in this life be as well. They lead us to our pearl of great price. They are the limp that lift us up and make us victorious in Him. Do you and I walk with such a limp this day, or do we still give in to our inner Jacob, scheming, manipulating, being the tricksters like him? Knowing Him as He desires us to know Him, will always come by way of our limp.

Blessings,
Pastor O