When God Breaks Your Hip

By James Pruch
November 20, 2007

I want to be a preacher.

Most wouldn’t want that as an occupation, but I’m irresistibly called there. I cannot help but have a desire to do that for a living.

My spiritual and natural gifts are developing and I sense a call to be a preaching pastor at a church. I’m excited about that. I’m excited about studying theology for my entire life and putting it into practice in my own life and helping the people of my church apply it as well. I heard Mark Driscoll, of Mars Hill in Seattle, say, “I go to the budget meetings and logistical meetings so I can preach. I’m a preacher. I do everything else so I can preach. I love to preach.” That’s the attitude I have, I think. I’m not good at a lot of things. I know how God has gifted me. So, I look forward to the day when I can preach every Sunday. It will be exciting.

Not to mention completely frightening.

There is this element of preaching that I have experienced lately. I have given two separate messages to college students at UNL and Chadron State within a month and a half of each other. The second message, at Chadron State, was changed to a different subject three days before the meeting. The element I’m talking about is deep repentance regarding the topics I speak on. It is utterly frightening to preach the word of God and be under that as a wretched sinner deep down in my soul. I’m not perfect; I’m a sinner just like everyone listening; I’m not holier than anyone. Yet, I preach because that’s what I’m good at. It is what God has ordained for me to do. It shakes my inner man to go up there and have the weight and authority of God’s word lying heavy on my heart, knowing that I do not match up to the standard that God requires.

No one should repent more, and more often, than the man preaching the message. Driscoll also said that three things make for good preaching: humility, prayer, and repentance. O, how I have experienced those things in preaching-including discipleship and evangelism with students on campus! Both times I’ve spoken this year, including other times in the last year, I have been over the railing with the Lord, being walloped, in continual confession of my sinfulness and prostitution against him. Still, the Lord is faithful and compassionate, not holding sins against me but cleansing me because of Christ’s work on the cross.

This might seem to be about preaching, but it is not. It’s about those three elements of preaching-and everyday life-that Driscoll talked about. Humility. Prayer. Repentance. When I do those things, I’m wrestling with the Lord. Think about the actual sport of wrestling. The two competitors are very close physically. They are expending all their energy in a battle. It is a deeply intimate, physical, vulnerable, tiring, and challenging sport. Spiritually, in the same way, we should be that way with God. When I think of relationships I have in life, they are not all perfect and nice. Some are quite messy and feel more like a wrestling match than a walk in the park. How much more should our relationship with God be a wrestling match so we can sharpen our convictions, seek out blessings, repent of our sins, and become more like him!

Now, forgot about the “winning” part of a wrestling match for a minute, because we could never “win” against God. But, think about the more you wrestle someone, how much you will wrestle like them because you see their moves and tendencies so often. In other areas of life, the more you are around someone-physically close to him, that is-the more you will become like him. We should wrestle with the Lord to know him more. We should love God like he is a real person-because he is real, utterly, indescribably real! When I am asking for humility in preaching, when I pray earnestly over the text of Scripture, and when I repent of my gross sins before Almighty God, I am wrestling with him. I am wrestling with his Word and what it means for my life today. I am asking God to, despite my weakness, reveal himself to me.

Wrestling with God is challenging, rewarding, joyful, tough, unpredictable, and beautiful. It is more intimate than anything we can experience with another person on this earth. It is more glorious than battling through the pitiful things we mettle through in everyday life. It is more splendid than learning to love your spouse, while enjoying each minute of it after fifty years. It is good for us to wrestle with God.

Even when he breaks your hip.

In Genesis 32:24-31, there is a man named Jacob who physically wrestled with God. In chapter 31 (just hours beforehand) Jacob feared meeting his brother Esau, whom he stole the family birthright from. Jacob feared for his life. Most likely, he was as nervous as a person could get. In Jacob’s most vulnerable moment-a moment of fear and probable repentance because of a stolen birthright-God grabbed hold of him in the middle of the night and wrestled him until daylight. Here’s the story:

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.” Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.” The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.

The distinguishing mark of this story is in verse 31, “The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.” Jacob was a man marked by wrestling with God. How long did he continue to limp? The Bible doesn’t say. No doubt though, he had that limp for the rest of his life. Everyone then could know of this intimate, deep, passionate bout he had in his relationship with God. His named was even changed to “Israel,” which means “to strive with God.” Think about that for a minute. Think of the Israelite nation. Think of the new covenant Israel-Christians. Don’t God’s people all strive with him? Don’t we all struggle with him in that we want to be like him, yet we betray him by committing sin? We are frail, yet we wrestle him for blessings that we don’t deserve?

What was the point of the wrestling match? On God’s part, we don’t know-for he is sovereign and he does what pleases him. On Jacob’s side, it became about blessing. He wanted to be blessed. He was not going to go through all that without experiencing some kind of blessing.

Do you want to be blessed? I am not talking about a big raise or a nice car. I am not talking about good health or a great family life. Blessing is more than being safe in a family-friendly neighborhood in the suburbs. God’s blessings go so much deeper than that. Let God bless you internally, with the blessing of him being your joy, satisfaction, treasure, obsession, and your one great pleasure in life. If you want to be blessed, then wrestle with God through humility, prayer, and repentance. Those things are not just facets of good preaching. They are integral to a healthy relationship with the Most High God.

Look at what Jacob says in verse 30: “So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel, saying, ‘For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.’” Jacob had not said that about God until he wrestled with him. I have mentioned several times how intimate a sport wrestling is. Two men are so close physically, sweating, spitting, and breathing on each other. They are fighting with every ounce of strength and by the end of the match, they can say, “I know this man, for I have seen his face because I have fought him and I am thankful to say I have made it out alive.” It is a scary thing to see God face to face. His glory is radiant; his splendor is majestic; his beauty is unmatched. We will never see those things unless we feed ourselves with his holy word and approach him humbly in prayer with an attitude of repentance. Being that close to the Lord, in all his sinfulness, Jacob should have been destroyed and damned, as should you and I. Yet, by God’s mercy and grace, he was spared. “My life has been delivered,” he said. Notice that Jacob does not say, “I survived! I fought a great match and gained a draw!” No, rather, Jacob has a mindset that he could have died and God gets the credit and praise for sparing his life. God was in control of the match the entire time, not Jacob.

In the same way, we great sinners should lay face-flat on the ground before God as we spiritually wrestle with him, knowing he has the ability to bring us to our end. Still, God is infinitely compassionate and loving toward us. As it says in Romans 5:8, “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” We deserve to be ended because of cosmic treason. Jacob deserved to be killed in his divine wrestling match. But, for God’s glory and our joy, that doesn’t happen.

Though Jacob didn’t die, his hip was broken, or more literally, thrown out of socket. He was hurt. His blessing was not consequence free, easy, and it did not come with a Happy Meal and a smile. He went into the trenches with the Lord and he came out with a battle wound. Jacob was wrestling with God and wouldn’t let him go unless he was blessed (v. 26). God blessed him, most definitely, but Jacob limped from that day on. Jacob lasted with God, until God said no more and humbled Jacob by injuring him. Matthew Henry, the great Bible commentator said, “Some think that Jacob felt little or no pain from this hurt; it is probable that he did not, for he did not so much as halt till the struggle was over and, if so, this was an evidence of a divine touch indeed, which wounded and healed at the same time. Jacob prevailed, and yet had his thigh put out. Wrestling believers may obtain glorious victories, and yet come off with broken bones; when they are weak then are they strong-weak in themselves, but strong in Christ.” In 2 Corinthians 12:10 Paul says, “For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

When I go before the Lord to wrestle, all I bring to the table is sin. Sin that needs to be repented of and prayed about. When I preach, I feel inadequate. My sin is so great and prevalent. I need to wrestle with the Lord so that I am not hypocritical. Instead, I need to be real and honest with God about my life. I am humbled to know that that God has made me adequate as a servant (2 Cor. 3:5-6) and that my sufficiency does not come from myself. I am humbled when I write articles like this or when I speak to college students because my hip is broken. I limp up to the front and speak about the glories of Jesus. When I am done, I limp back to my seat and thank him for the sufficiency his death provided.

If I am not wrestling with God, I am in dire straights and in trouble of being deceived by sin. May that never be! I want to be so close to God that when this life is over, I can say, “I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.” I want to be like Jacob as he limped away from the battle ground during sunrise, looking back at his God-experience having no regrets.

Am I humbled? Am I praying? Am I repenting? The only way I can know is if I am limping.

Jon Foreman, of Switchfoot, wrote a song about living life to the full until it’s over. About that song, he said, “Seems like every story I can relate to starts off with a broken heart, broken dreams, and bleeding parts. There’s a story I know about a man named Israel who wrestled with God. From that day on he walked with a limp. I guess in a lot of ways I don’t trust a man who doesn’t have a limp.”

If I am not limping, I cannot trust myself. The Kingdom of God is made up of great sinners who are failures, fools, and rejects. Yet, Christ brings his healing power when we call on his name, when we wrestle with him, when we ask for blessing. Though his touch hurts, weakens, and breaks our hip, causing us to limp, it also rejuvenates, blesses, heals, and gives hope. Let us all wrestle with God until we are blessed and satisfied with his presence in our heart, soul, mind, and body. Let us wrestle with God until he breaks our hip.

My hip is broken. And I’m fine what that.