What is a blog?! I've forgotten, seeing how it has been years. Harleigh Grace will be here in two months! That is a shocker..it feels like yesterday I was 3 months pregnant. Time has most certaintly flown by. We are still not in a house, that is also a shocker! But my God is sufficient and He is my provision! No worries...
I was trying to get my feet off the floor recently...and laid back in a great recliner. While sitting there with my eyes closed I began to think upon Jacob. From the time he was born his name meant "supplanter, deceiver or trickster..."
Supplanter means: to take the place of another, as through force, scheming, or to replace. To overthrow or to trip up.
I'm sure we all are familiar with the other two words meanings.
Anyways, every name that I pick for my children I want to mean something great, I want it to be who they are. The meaning of names was also so important in the "bible days" and to some of us today, it still is. Who names their child a name that has that kind of meaning? Deceiver...trickster..supplanter.
Although Jacob was named such a name, he was blessed by God. It took some scheming to get the first-born blessing...but lo and behold, Jacob was blessed by God. We know this because many times the scripture says it. Jacob even says it to his father-in-law, Laban (Genesis 31:42). In the end, this name Jacob was given was a name that he had to live with for the rest of his life. A name that meant something I sure wouldn't have wanted to be labeled as.
While on his way back to his "hometown", he finds out that Esau is headed his way with 400 men. Now, think back to the beginning when Esau is boiling mad because his little brother took his birth right. He said he would kill him, etc. We all know the story. So, wouldn't you be freaking out a little bit if you knew that your angry (with you) brother was on his way to meet YOU with 400 men? Yes, I thought so. So, Jacob reminds God of his promise He made to him so on so forth. (This is not the point of my story, hence my skipping forward!)
Eventually Jacob has split his group into so many smaller groups and sends them ahead of him. All that is left on one side of the river with him are his wives and children. He wakes up in the middle of the night and sends them over too. 1. Who wakes up in the middle of the night and makes a random decision like this? and 2. Jacob gets alone.
Once Jacob gets alone the "man" comes and wrestles Jacob. These two men are wrestling and Jacob is winning. The man says to Jacob, "Let me go, for the dawn is breaking!" And Jacob's response is, "I will not let you go until you bless me!"...Then God changes his name to "VICTORIOUS!"
Have you ever had a moment in your life, where you got alone...and you waited for God to come? Have you ever said, "I will not leave this place until you bless me!?" "God I will wait here until you show up and you CHANGE me." I don't have an alcohol, drug or porn problem. I don't cheat on my husband or murder...(although all sin is the same)...but I do deal with the small issues. I know many times I have gotten alone with God and cried out for change! I want to have victory over even the smallest issues in my heart. The days I may have even lost my temper or patience..the days that I've wrongfully juged a person....I want to be victorious over that!
I love spending my time pushing into God and seeking His face, and I love the times that He is so enticed by my wanting, that He comes to me. It may take a while for that flesh to begin to burn enough for Him to come, but it burns indeed. Sometimes the flesh begins to burn before I begin to seek and He meets me before I ever decide to seek Him.
Anyways, my point of the story is this...we all have to come to a place where we recognize something that is a little off-kilter in our walk with Jesus Christ whether it be small or big, and we put all distractions aside and get alone and wait on God to come and declare us victorious. The main thing is to walk in that victory and own it. Never looking back at who I once was...I am no longer "(insert sin)", I am VICTORIOUS! My dealings are not with the past but with the future and who I've been destined to be.
This touched me in a mighty way, I hope it can do the same for you.
-Victorious!
