Wrestling with God... and winning?

It's occurred to me that I haven't posted about some spiritual in awhile. So I'm going to post about something I've been thinking about. And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day.
When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him.   Then he said, "Let me go, for the day has broken." But Jacob said, "I will not let you go unless you bless me." And he said to him, "What is your name?" And he said, "Jacob." Then he said, "Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed." (Genesis 32:24-28)You might have heard this story before, how God renamed Jacob to Israel. It never made much sense to me. I mean, wrestling with God and winning? How could anyone wrestle with God and win? It's just confusing.

But then I started thinking about the decades and centuries after that, after Jacob died. God called the Israelites out of slavery, but after that, they did a lot of things wrong. They complained when God gave them food. They continually disobeyed Him and didn't trusted Him. Again and again, they would forget God and give their lives to worthless and unsatisfying things. That's why God called the prophets.

These are the people that wrestled with God and won. It made no sense. Until I began to think.

In a way, they did prevail. Because no matter how many terrible things they did to Him, He never could let them go. He contemplated forgetting them and killing them because of the terrible things they did to him, like when they made the Golden Calf. He had to every right to, of course. He had brought them out of slavery and they made a idol when Moses wasn't watching! It's a wonder God didn't punished and forget them.

Yet, He didn't. He went on and on about how mad he was at them and how horrible they were to Him. He had every right to. He let Babylon attack them. But He never did forget them. He loved them when they hated Him. He was faithful when they weren't. Even when God decided to hand them over to Babylon, He still said that He would bring them back again.

So Israel did  wrestle with God, and in a way, Isreal did win because though God wanted to, He could never let go of His people. Still, He continues to be faithful to us even when we're not. It was His example which lead the prophet, Hosea, to be faithful to his wife, who cheated on him.

God's love prevails over all and it's just amazing to think about it. I feel great whenever I think of Jacob or Israel because I've reminded of God's amazing love towards the people of Israel and to me.

"I will heal their apostasy. I will love them freely for my anger has turned from them.... they shall return and dwell beneath my shadow." (Hosea)