What Is My Limp?
I’ve been thinking about Jacob.
About that night when he wrestled with God and refused to let go.
“I will not let You go unless You bless me.”
— Genesis 32:26
There is something in those words that feels deeply familiar to me.
To wrestle with God. To contend for answers. To ask him to change situations. To bring the breakthrough…to bless me. To do what only He can do!
I’ve come to learn and know what it is to hold onto God like that.
But I’ve come to realise that there is another prayer hidden inside that prayer.
Lord, while I am asking You to change this… what are You changing in me?
The blessing changed Jacob.
Jacob received what he had asked for, and God blessed him.
But the blessing didn’t look quite as we might expect.
Jacob entered the encounter with one name and left with another. He entered as Jacob and left as Israel. And he entered walking in his own strength — but when the sun rose, he walked away with a limp.
He had encountered God.
And he would never walk the same way again.
That challenges me because so much of my prayer life can become focused on what I want God to change around me.
Change the circumstances.
Change the relationship.
Open the door.
Answer the prayer.
Bring the breakthrough.
And I believe we should ask. I believe in a God who heals, restores, intervenes, and does the impossible.
But what if the deeper work of the encounter is sometimes what God is doing within me while I wait?
Maybe the limp is where I learned to lean
There are prayers I am still praying.
Places where I cannot yet see the answer.
Things I would resolve today if God simply handed me the pen.
And perhaps that is exactly where the invitation lies.
Because when I cannot control the outcome, I have to decide whether I will continue trying to carry it myself — or whether I will lean my full weight onto God.
Maybe my “limp” is the place where self-sufficiency is being broken.
Maybe the unanswered prayer is teaching me to trust.
Maybe the waiting is forming patience.
Maybe disappointment is teaching me that God’s goodness cannot be measured only by whether life goes according to my plan.
Maybe the thing I keep asking God to remove is becoming the very place where I am learning to depend on Him.
The limp is not necessarily evidence that God has abandoned me. It may be evidence that I have learned to lean.
The sun still rose
I love this small detail in Jacob’s story:
“The sun rose upon him… and he was limping.”
— Genesis 32:31
The sun still rose.
There was a new morning.
God had not left him in the wrestling.
But the man who stepped into that morning was not the same man who had entered the night.
And perhaps that is becoming one of my prayers:
Lord, don’t let me leave this season the same woman who entered it.
I still want the breakthrough.
I still bring You the desires of my heart.
I still believe You can change circumstances that look impossible to me.
But more than getting my preferred outcome, I want You.
If there are places in me that still need to surrender, touch them.
If I am gripping something too tightly, loosen my hands.
If I am relying on my own strength, teach me to lean.
If waiting is necessary to form something in me that could not be formed any other way, give me grace to wait.
I want to walk differently
Perhaps pursuing God costs us something.
Jacob’s encounter did.
He could no longer walk as he had before.
But he also could no longer be who he had been before.
And I think I am beginning to understand that I don’t want encounters with God that simply make me feel better and then allow me to continue unchanged.
I want Him to change the way I walk.
So my prayer is becoming:
Bless me, Lord.
But don’t only bless me.
Change me.
Make me more like Jesus.
And if there is a limp left behind from the places where I have wrestled, waited, surrendered and held onto You, let it testify to this:
I have learned that I cannot do this in my own strength.
I would rather walk with a limp with You than walk confidently in my own strength without You.
An invitation…
Where are you still wrestling with God?
What are you asking Him to change?
And perhaps the harder question:
What might He be changing in you while you wait?
Don’t let go.
The sun will rise.
And perhaps when it does, you will discover that the greatest answer to your prayer wasn’t only what changed around you.
It was who you became while you held onto Him.
Genesis 32:26–31 · 2 Corinthians 12:9 · Proverbs 3:5–6
#TheWaySheWalks #HoldingOntoGod #PursuingGod #TrustGod #SurrenderToGod #WomenOfFaith #WalkingWithGod #TrustHisTiming #GodIsWorking #SpiritualGrowth #BecomingLikeJesus #GraceInTheWaiting #LeanOnHim
