In Genesis 32, we find the familiar story of Jacob wrestling with an angel.

This was no quick bout as they wrestled all night. It wasn’t the angel couldn’t easily win. God wanted to teach Jacob a lesson – a lesson Jacob wouldn’t forget, and would put God’s power on display for all to see.

Up until this point, Jacob had been a coward, deceiver, and liar. God was going to do what was necessary to give Jacob the opportunity to grow in strength and endurance because of what God had planned for Jacob’s future. Fortunately, Jacob humbled himself and learned his lessons.

But that came at a cost.

As the sun dawned, all the angel had to do was touch Jacob’s hip socket to cause Jacob’s hip to dislocate. We’re told that, from that time on, Jacob walked with a limp .

A.W. Tozer once made the following unsettling statement,

“I doubt God can use a person greatly until he has first hurt them deeply.”

Selah (Pause and think about that.)

It was precisely because of that painful night in the hills of Bethel that Jacob (though he would still get many things wrong) was able to be the person God had asked him to be.

One scholar called “being hurt by God” – “severe mercy” – since God often uses struggles in our lives to put on display his power and might.

Consider Jesus’ corrective words to his disciples when they assumed a man born blind had somehow deserved his blindness due to sin in his life.

As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man who had been blind from birth. ² “Rabbi,” his disciples asked him, “why was this man born blind? Was it because of his own sins or his parents’ sins?” ³ “It was not because of his sins or his parents’ sins,” Jesus answered. “This happened so the power of God could be seen in him.” (John 9:1-3)

Then, Jesus displayed his power by healing that man.

Two chapters later, God “gave a limp” to Mary and Martha, allowing their beloved brother to die.

Then, Jesus displayed his power by raising Lazarus from the dead.

Personally, I thought about growing up in a violent alcoholic home. Watching my dad and sister die due to life-long addiction. And then finding my son after he’d taken his life. I thought about my own struggles with mental health. I found myself asking God, “How many times are you going to dislocate my hip?”

No doubt, you’ve felt the same way at times.

Perhaps you’ve experienced in your life the loss of a job, a divorce, the announcement of a terrible medical diagnosis, financial stress, crippling disappointment, the list goes on. Rest in this…

The Bible tells us God wastes nothing – not even our pain.

God will (if we let him) use our “limp” to bring light into a dark world, to bring love to those who feel unlovely, to give hope to the hopeless, and truth and purpose to those searching for it.

I read once,

“People don’t relate with our strengths; they relate with our weaknesses.”

Translation: people relate more with people with “limps” than people who appear to have it all together.

Sure, we could play the victim – Jacob certainly could have. And Satan is hoping we will. 

When I consider this biblical principle, I often think of a Russian man who, due to writing letters criticizing Joseph Stalin, suffered greatly in the infamous Soviet Gulag. But God used this “limp” to display his glory.

In 1983,  Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn received the Templeton Prize. The award citation described him as representing the vitality of Orthodox spirituality and said his achievements were made possible by his “profound Christian faith.”

In 1945,   after spending eight years in that prison camp, Solzhenitsyn was able to look back on his “limp”, he pen something profound…

“…it was only when I lay on rotting straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good…. So, bless you prison for having been in my life.”

With Christ’s suffering, resurrection, and exaltation in view, we can pray, “Bless you ‘limp’ for having been in my life. For it’s ‘in our weakness that he is strong.”‘ (Cf. 2 Corinthians 12:10)

nick