It feels like a perfect day. The sun is shining, the kids are happy, work is manageable, and for a moment, you think, “I’ve got this. Life is good.” You’re cruising along a smooth, freshly paved highway, and everything seems to be going your way. Then, without warning, the road disappears. You’re jolted onto a rocky, unpaved path filled with potholes and uncertainty. This is disruption. It’s the unexpected job change, the frightening diagnosis, the relationship that shatters, the financial crisis that appears out of nowhere. It’s that moment when the comfortable rhythm of your life is violently interrupted, and you find yourself utterly and terrifyingly alone. In these moments, fear can be a suffocating blanket. What do you do when everything you’ve built feels like it’s about to crumble? What happens when you’re left with nothing but the fight? It’s a deeply spiritual question, and the answer might be found in an ancient story of a man who wrestled through the darkest night of his life and emerged with a limp and a blessing.
A name you might know, a struggle you might feel
Let’s talk about a man named Jacob. If ever there was a character who understood disruption, it was him. His life was a series of self-inflicted crises and desperate escapes. He was born into a complicated family, the younger twin who was favored by his mother. Driven by ambition and a bit of maternal coaching, he swindled his older brother, Esau, out of his birthright and his father’s blessing. This act of deception was the first major disruption in his life, forcing him to flee for his life. Esau was furious, and Jacob knew he had to get out of town or face his brother’s wrath.
He ran to his uncle Laban’s house, a place called Padan Aram. There, he fell in love with Laban’s beautiful daughter, Rachel. But Jacob, the deceiver, was about to get a taste of his own medicine. He worked for seven years to earn Rachel’s hand in marriage, only to be tricked on his wedding night into marrying her older sister, Leah. To marry the woman he truly loved, he had to work another seven years. For two decades, he worked for his uncle, who repeatedly changed his wages, trying to take advantage of him. Yet, through it all, God blessed Jacob. His flocks multiplied to the point where Laban’s own sons grew jealous and hostile, whispering that Jacob was stealing their inheritance. This growing tension created another disruption. Jacob overheard their complaints and knew it was time to leave once again. It was then that God spoke to him, reminding him of a powerful encounter they had years earlier at a place called Bethel. God commanded him: “Now arise and get out of this land and return to the land of your family.” Return. Go back and face the music. Go back and confront the very brother who had sworn to kill him.
When you’re left with nothing but the fight
Can you imagine the fear? The last time Jacob saw Esau, his brother was breathing threats of murder. Now, God Himself was sending him back into the lion’s den. Jacob obeyed, but he was terrified. He sent messengers ahead with gifts to try and appease Esau, but they returned with chilling news: “Esau is coming to meet you, and he has 400 men with him.” Four hundred men. This wasn’t a welcome party; it was an army. Panic set in. Jacob’s mind raced, believing this could be his last day on earth. All the wrongs he had ever done were coming back to haunt him in the form of an approaching war party.
In a desperate attempt to save at least some of his family and wealth, he divided his entire camp—his wives, his children, his livestock—into separate groups. He sent them one by one across the river, hoping that if Esau attacked the first group, the others might have a chance to escape. Finally, he sent his immediate family, the ones closest to his heart, across the river as well. And then, the text says something profound: “Then Jacob was left alone.” He was on one side of the river, completely isolated, with his past behind him and his greatest fear marching toward him. It was in this place of total solitude and vulnerability that the true fight began. A man appeared, and he and Jacob wrestled all night long, until the breaking of day. This is what disruption does. It strips everything away and leaves you alone to face the deepest struggles of your heart.
A story of fire, faith, and financial freefall
This kind of all-consuming wrestle isn’t just an ancient story. I want to share a personal experience from 2020 and 2021 that felt like being thrown into the ring with no way out. It was a season of disruption after disruption. My wife and I had just been blessed to find and buy our dream house—a place in the country with some land. It was a huge step of faith, an online auction during a time when gatherings were forbidden. We won. We were ecstatic. And then, just two weeks later, we were served with a lawsuit concerning our old property, the very property we were planning to sell to pay for the new one. The floor dropped out from under us. We were stuck. We couldn’t sell a property tied up in a lawsuit without disclosing it, and no one would pay what it was worth under those uncertain conditions. The panic was real.
Our plan was shattered. The money we’d counted on for renovations on the new house—to make it livable for our family—was frozen. So, we found ourselves in a catch-22: remodeling the old house to increase its value while simultaneously trying to find a way to remodel the new house just so we could move in. We leveraged everything we had. I was working my full-time job at the church, navigating the complexities of that season, and then I would go home, eat, change clothes, and work on renovations until midnight, one, or two in the morning. Every single day. On top of this, our house in South Africa, which we had been renting out, became vacant. We had to put it on the market in a locked-down nation where I couldn’t even travel. The economy was terrible; it was nearly a fire sale. One Sunday morning, as I was about to preach, I received a text: “Hey, your building’s on fire.” My old property. It felt like a cruel joke. Really? In the middle of all this? A few weeks later, a family vehicle was totaled. We were down a car. Then, our real estate agents in South Africa, a husband-and-wife team who were helping us navigate a bureaucratic nightmare of getting architectural plans approved for an old addition, stopped communicating. Two weeks later, their office called to inform us that both of them had been hospitalized with COVID and had passed away. We were devastated, and practically, we were stranded. We didn’t even know where the keys to our house were.
It felt like we were drowning. Every week brought a new wave of crisis. And somehow, in the midst of this personal chaos, I was asked to become the successor at my job. My wife and I would look at each other, wondering if we were going to make it. We were running on empty, everything laid out on the table. But here’s the thing: God was faithful. He kept walking with us, day by day. When a huge bill was due, the insurance payout from the totaled car came in that very same week. It was a tragedy that turned into a provision. The money from the fire restoration company floated us through until we could finish some of the remodel projects. Friends showed up and offered their help, holding us up when we couldn’t stand on our own. When we finally calculated the amount of money we had spent that year, I told the person who ran the numbers, “You are looking at a miracle.” There was no natural way we could have had that amount of money. It was a brutal, emotionally draining season. But we survived. And we learned that God’s faithfulness isn’t about an easy life; it’s about His presence in the hardest of lives.
“I will not let you go until you bless me”
Let’s go back to Jacob, alone by the river in the dead of night. He’s wrestling with this mysterious man, and he refuses to give up. The man, seeing he could not prevail, touches Jacob’s hip and puts it out of joint. He then says, “Let me go, for the day breaks.” But Jacob, exhausted, in pain, and facing potential annihilation in the morning, says something incredibly bold: “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” In the middle of his panic and fear, in the heat of the fight, he recognizes that his opponent has the power to bless him. He understands that the very source of his struggle is also the source of his salvation. This is the secret. This is the turning point. It’s the kind of audacious faith the Jewish people call chutzpah—a relentless grit that says, “I know this is hard, I know this is painful, but God, you are the only one who can turn this around, and I am holding on to you until you do.”
It’s a faith that declares, as Hebrews 11:6 says, that God exists and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. Not casually seek Him, but diligently—with the tenacity of a man wrestling all night for his future. It’s about setting your face like flint and refusing to give up, even when it doesn’t feel good, even when you can’t see the end. It’s about singing songs of God’s goodness when your circumstances scream the opposite, because you are verbalizing a truth that is higher than your current reality. You are clinging to the One who alone has the ability to turn what the enemy meant for a curse into an incredible blessing. And He does. He always does when we refuse to let go.
What you learn about yourself, and what you learn about God
Every time we encounter a disruption, it’s an invitation. It’s a chance to learn two crucial things: a lot about ourselves, and a lot about God. In a crisis, our weaknesses, our fears, and our hidden insecurities come to the surface. We see what we’re really made of. But more profoundly, we get to see what God is made of. We experience His power in the big miracles, like a dramatic healing or a financial rescue. But we experience His fatherhood in the small things. It’s in the day-to-day moments where He shows up in unexpected ways. It’s the friend who calls right when you need it, the check that arrives just in time, the word of encouragement that feels like it came directly from heaven.
During our season of chaos, God’s fatherhood was revealed in those little moments. It was our friends showing up to help with the remodeling. It was the insurance money covering a bill we had no way to pay. It was the constant, quiet whisper in our hearts, “Keep going. I am with you.” We would have totally missed that side of God—the depth of His care, the intricacy of His provision—if we had given up. We would have had to go around the mountain again, to learn the same lesson in a different way. Disruption is not a punishment; it’s a classroom. It’s an opportunity to move beyond knowing God as a distant, all-powerful being and to experience Him as a close, loving Father who is deeply invested in the details of our lives.
From Jacob the deceiver to Israel the overcomer
At the end of that long, painful night, the man asks Jacob a simple question: “What is your name?” He said, “Jacob.” The name meant “supplanter,” “deceiver.” It was a name that defined his past, his mistakes, his character flaws. Then the man gave him his blessing: “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed.” This was the ultimate reward. It wasn’t wealth or safety; it was a new identity. The wrestle changed who he was. He walked away with a limp, a permanent reminder of the struggle, but he also walked away as a new man—not the one who runs and deceives, but the one who engages with God and overcomes.
This is the promise for us. When we engage with God in our disruptions, when we wrestle through the night instead of running away, He doesn’t just solve our problems; He transforms us. He calls us out of our past and gives us a new identity rooted in a future He has planned for us. He takes our failures and fears and forges them into strength and faith. Like Jacob, we may have to confront our past. God often sends us back to deal with the “Esaus” in our lives—the unforgiveness, the old wounds, the patterns we thought we left behind. He does this because He wants to heal us from the inside out, so we can carry the weight of the blessing He has for us. The goal isn’t just to survive the disruption; it’s to be redefined by it.
What’s your next move?
Perhaps you’re reading this from your own place of disruption. Maybe you feel alone by the river, with fear closing in. The message for you today is one of profound encouragement. That struggle is an open invitation from God to know Him and yourself more deeply. If you’re already in the thick of the wrestle, feeling weary and worn out, the call is to hold on. Find that inner grit and refuse to let go until He blesses you. Maybe you feel God calling you into a new identity, asking you to leave the past behind and position yourself for the future He has for you. Or perhaps you simply long to know God not just as a mighty deity, but as a loving Father who cares about the small moments of your life. The question for all of us is the same: what is our appropriate response? The wrestle is waiting. Don’t be afraid of it. The greatest blessings in life are often found on the other side of our hardest fights.
