For those who weren't able to see the musical Big, my character, Josh, goes to work for a toy company. As a vice-president, he's in charge of telling this huge corporation if certain toys are fun or not.

It's an arduous job. It's arduous because he has to test all these toys (I know, right, how hard is it to play all day long?). Well, one of the toys he's developing with his love interest, Susan, is the game called Ring-a-Ding boxing.

When Josh first sees the mock-up of the game, he immediately thinks his idea is dumb. Susan challenges him on this and there, in Josh's office at 4 AM, they put on these super-sized boxing gloves and then...nothing...Josh doesn't move. Josh doesn't engage because as he puts it, "I can't hit a girl!"

Susan tricks Josh and they do, in fact, have fun with the harmless gloves on for a moment or two. This started me thinking about today's scripture. Like Josh, Jacob doesn't start this. Like Josh, Jacob didn't start the match. Jacob didn't start wrestling with God.

Or did he?

The text says clearly that God approaches Jacob. In other words, God starts it.

But I'm not convinced that the one who started this is not the very one who had been turning away from God by tricking people all of his life. I'll get to more of this in a moment, but for now, let's understand Jacob a bit more.

Unlike Abraham, who has a reputation for being a Godly man and doing the right thing, we must use different words to describe Jacob—words like shyster, liar, manipulator, cheater, schemer, and con-artist because, as we know in scripture, his character was revealed at birth. He was the second born of twins and came out holding his brother Esau's heel and has been grabbing things ever since.

I like how one person put it. "Jacob was the kind of person that could enter a revolving door behind you and come out ahead of you."

Here are the facts. Jacob cheated his brother, conned his father, and swindled his father-in-law. What he did wasn't exactly illegal but they weren't exactly moral or right either. In all that he did, Jacob was his primary focus. And up to now Jacob had done fine on his own. And at the stream called Jabbok (which means pouring out or emptying), he empties himself of all his possessions and relationships to the other side.

But now he's coming home. You see, many years earlier, after Jacob stole the blessing from Esau, his mother Rebekah was going to send for him after Esau calmed down. But there is nothing in the Bible that she ever sent word that it was safe to come home. But God tells Jacob to "go home". Now after many years had passed Jacob was returning and he was afraid that his brother might still try to kill him.

God sends us similar messages, too. In God's time, we hear directly and indirectly from our Creator about getting back to where we came from. We hear from God about wrongs we need to make right. As with Jacob, God sends us ways we understand that bridges burned in our past once need to be rebuilt, or longstanding relationships rocked need to be restored.

Unlike in times past, Jacob listens to God this time. Jacob comes to the Jabbok River. Crossing it means crossing into Esau's territory. Hoping to appease his brother so that he wouldn't kill him, Jacob sends gifts across the river ahead of him. He sends his servants with gifts for Esau of 220 goats, 220 sheep, 30 camels, 40 cows, 10 bulls, and 30 donkeys. As Jacob was making these preparations he said to himself, "I will pacify him with these gifts I am sending on ahead; later, when I see him, perhaps he will receive me" (Genesis 32:20). Later that night, he sends his wives and sons across the river and finally he sends the rest of his servants with the rest of his possessions across.

Now he is alone. He has done all that he can think to do, even pray. And how does God answer? With a wrestling match.

And this continues the point I made earlier. Who started wrestling in the first place? Scripture here tells us it's God, but I think Jacob has been wrestling with God-tuning God out, ignoring God, fighting with God, long, long, long before this scripture passage here.

Perhaps you've been wrestling with God, too.

Maybe you wouldn't put it quite in those terms. You may not say 'wrestling' but you certainly struggle, or have struggled, getting to church regularly at a point in your life. You may not say wrestling, but you've certainly driven your own car, you've taken the bull by its horns; you've certainly controlled—or have tried to control—your own fate, destiny and direction. God has told you one way and you went the other.

But that's not wrestling, or is it?

Let our scripture today live. Consider that you may have been wrestling with God and, unlike Jacob, may not have even realized it. When opportunities for ministry came up, you came up with excuses not to go. That was wrestling. When you could have gone to a worship service, for example, you came up with a somewhat good reason not to go. While you were coming up with a reason you were wrestling. When you were deciding whether or not a bible study could fit into a schedule you know you could adapt, you weren't just deciding—no—you were wrestling. When God asked you to do something, or be a part of something—something as simple as attending a church outing—you wrestled your way of it by finding an excuse that could work, and you held to it.

I do believe Jacob isn't the only one who wrestled with God. I think we've all done it.

Point one today in your sermon notes is to recognize when you're wrestling. Again, point one is to recognize when you're wrestling.

You may have called it "decision making" or "discernment." You may have been "striking a balance" or "making the pieces fit" in your schedule—and those are all great, grown-up words or phrases my 13-year old character Josh Baskin would say—oh yes, very grown up—but really, bottom line, what you're doing with this is wrestling with God.

Yes, recognize when you're wrestling with God. Realize times you're 'here' and God is 'there' and know that distance is your own doing. That's our second point. Distance is your own doing.

God was with Jacob the whole time. When Jacob schemed, cheated, stole and broke significant family relationships, God was there for him as God is here for you. Right here. Here inside. As close as your next breath. In fact, think of God in your next breath and you're on the road to discovery that there's a peace, assurance, and a blessing just a step away, it may meet you later today or be waiting for you first thing tomorrow, and to find it find God, who never leaves or abandons you.

From Hebrews 13:5 understand all who wrestle what is true—that God never, never will leave you or forsake you—and for all my thirteen year old thinkers out there, forsake means that God will never abandon, disown, renounce, relinquish, give up or turn His back on you ever. Ever.

Yes, recognize when you're wrestling, one, and two, know that distance is your own doing.

Now I've been talking about Josh Baskin this morning, the character in the musical "Big." Josh doesn't like where he is at the start of the show as many people today don't quite like where they are. He makes a wish on a magical carnival machine and—voila—the machine grants his wish. He's looking for something as Jacob is looking for something: Josh wants to be a grown-up and Jacob wants peace with his brother. We may want that pressing problem to go away at the workplace, with that extended family member, with that so-called friend of yours, with that situation right there at home. These seem like outward struggles. But what if they're not? What if there are not so much outward as they are wrestling matches going on inside of you as they are wrestling matches going on inside these two?

When we first read our scripture lesson today, there's a part most find confusing. After this match between Jacob and God, God gives Jacob a blessing. Our take home from this is not complicated. When you engage God, you, like Jacob, receive a blessing.

That's our final point this morning. When you engage God, you receive a blessing.

Mary Smithenblaum, a sixty-eight year old retired high school science teacher, never gave God much thought or time—and this is from a woman who'd been attending a UCC church since 1964. Yes, for forty-seven years Mary's been a part of a church from a distance. Her church attendance over the past ten years was usually good, and she did that church woman's group equivalent to any secular helping hands non-profit organization, but if you asked Mary if she was wrestling with God she'd say 'no.' However, ask Mary if she's trying to understand God in her life and she'd say yes.

Mary's not yet getting the connection between trying to understand God in her life and wrestling. In theory, Mary hears that distance is her own doing, but that's about as far as she can take it because really, she thinks, 'distance being her own doing' is really some trite phrase you could find on a bumper sticker.

Sure, Mary has enjoyed some sweet times in her life. Like everyone else, she's also endured some sour times as well. But to this day, she has not given it all to God. She's not engaged God. She hasn't gotten close to God and tangled up with him. She doesn't know how strong he is or that he just won't quit.

It is clear from the text today that Jacob didn't "prevail" in the wrestling match in the sense of defeating God. They wrestled all through the night and it appeared that it was going to be a draw until God dislocated Jacob's hip with a simple touch. It was as if God allowed Jacob to take his best shot as God let's us take our best shot at it, and then God showed was still—and always—in control with a single touch. That night Jacob found out that he couldn't push God around and do things the way he'd always done them.

Maybe you're there now, too.  Maybe like Jacob and even Mary you're tired of wrestling God, and now, with God, you are ready for your blessing.

If you quit wrestling with God, you, too, will be blessed.

So stop wrestling. Stop dislocating yourself from the one who never forsakes you. Yes. Find your blessing.