Scarred by God: A limp and a new name - a Jacob story

When I saw that this was the topic I had scheduled to write on today, I actually sighed… because mehn, it didn’t feel like I was in the right frame of mind to articulate something like this. Not this kind of weight. Not this kind of story, so I'm adapting a soliloquy style with mostly just contemplations and questions.

Because the Jacob story in the Creator’s manual is not light reading. It’s layered, uncomfortable… almost suspicious in how God chooses to work with a man like that.

A man who “steals” his brother’s birthright.
A man who orchestrates deception so well he secures a blessing that wasn’t “meant” for him.
A man whose very identity becomes his reputation  AKA supplanter.

And then… almost like clockwork, the ripple effect begins.

What I’ll call Jacob’s curse, not because God cursed him… but because actions have echoes.

Backed by his mother, he runs.
Exile becomes his new normal.
He arrives at his uncle’s house, and suddenly, the trickster meets a better trickster.

He labours.
Seven years… becomes fourteen.
Love becomes negotiation.
Commitment becomes currency.

And you almost want to pause and ask —Is this justice? Is this irony? Or is this design?

Because somehow, in the middle of all that chaos… God is still present.

Not loud.
Not dramatic.
But present.

Almost like… the blessing he carried refused to be cancelled by the life he lived.

And that’s a dangerous thought if you sit with it long enough.

Because it means there are dimensions of God’s dealings with man that are not transactional, not neat,
not predictable.

But thats not the crux of our conversation today.

Because the real disruption, the moment that bends the entire narrative, happens later.


After the running, after the labour, after the years of trying to survive consequences.

He’s alone.

And then… it happens, an encounter, scripture calls it wrestling.

Not prayer. Not worship. Not a quiet moment of reflection. Wrestling.

As if to suggest that some encounters with God are not gentle… they are contending, they are intrusive.
They demand something from you, or rather, they take something from you.

There are many schools of thought around what exactly happened that night…but two things remain undeniable.

He left with a limp. And he left with a new name.

And I find that deeply unsettling, because we often talk about encounters with God as upgrades, as elevations, as moments where everything becomes clearer, better, easier.

But Jacob’s encounter? It marked him. Physically. Permanently.

The same God who blessed him… touched him in a way that weakened him. Dislocated his joint.

And I can’t help but wonder…

What kind of God wins a wrestling match against a man… and still chooses to leave him limping?

Or maybe the better question is, what needed to be broken in Jacob for Israel to emerge?

Because the name changed…But the scar stayed. And maybe that’s the point.

Just to tie all this string of thoughts together.


There are moments in our sojourn on earth that carry this same weight.

Moments where time almost pauses…And something eternal presses into something temporary.

Moments where God doesn’t just speak, He touches.

And when He does… it’s not always convenient. It’s not always beautiful. Sometimes… it leaves a mark.

A disruption in how you used to move.
A shift in how you used to think.
A breaking of something you once relied on.

Your own “hollow,” if we can call it that. And everything changes after that.

Not always externally. Not immediately. But internally… irreversibly.

You walk different.
You respond different.
You carry a knowing you cannot fully explain.

And the interesting thing is… people may celebrate the name change, but they rarely talk about the limp.

The quiet reminder that something happened. That you didn’t just evolve… you encountered.

That you didn’t just grow… you were touched. And maybe that’s where the tension sits.

Because we love the idea of becoming… but we resist the process of being marked.

We want Israel… but we are uncomfortable with the night that produces him.

So I leave you with this, not answers, just questions…

What if the very thing you’ve been asking God to remove… is actually the evidence that you met Him?

What if your limp is not weakness… but memory? What if the scar is not damage… but signature?

And if He were to touch your “hollow”, whatever that represents for you, would you still ask for the encounter…knowing you may never walk the same again?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Discernment in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Image
  A meditation on what we risk losing in the very moment we gain everything There are moments in history that do not announce themselves. They do not arrive with trumpets or trembling earth. They slip in quietly, the way ink bleeds into water, until one morning you look up and realize that everything, all of it, is already colored by them. We are living inside such a moment now. Not merely an age of machines, an age where thought itself has been externalized. Where intelligence, once cultivated through years of solitude, failure, and the slow discipline of wrestling with hard things, now arrives obedient to the slightest prompt. Once upon a time, to think deeply was a practice. Now, to not think at all is a temptation. And so the most important question before us is not technological. It is far older, and it has stalked every civilization that ever mistook a tool for a truth. What becomes of a person when the labor of thinking is no longer required of them? I. The Gift That ...
Read more

Ordinary Lives Don’t Bleed: What an extraordinary life will require in 2026

Image
Yesterday was disruptive in the best possible way. Not chaotic, not loud, just the kind of disruption that quietly rearranges you from the inside. In the middle of it all, one line kept echoing in my spirit, a line from the ruckus himself: Ordinary lives don’t bleed and that’s the point. ( Olakunle Soriyan 2025) It stayed with me longer than I expected, so today I am writing from there. There is something about a new year that shifts our psychology. A simple change in calendar nomenclature and suddenly hope feels lighter, courage feels closer, and possibility feels more accessible. We call it a reset. A chance to recalibrate, realign goals and plans, and frame the reality we desire for the next three hundred and sixty five days. Goals are written. Visions are cast. Intentions are declared. But what often goes unspoken is this. Most people plan for outcomes without planning for what those outcomes will demand of them. We focus on what we want to have while paying far less attention ...
Read more

Four Hands, One Truth: Why Luck Has Hands

Image
You know one of those reels you randomly stumble on while scrolling through Instagram ? I came across one discussing the idea of provision   how resources, opportunities, and survival often come into people’s lives. The speaker approached it from a religious framework, but I think the concept can speak to believers and non-believers alike. Because whether one sees Scripture as divine revelation, wisdom literature, or historical record, it still contains powerful case studies on human behavior, power, economics, survival, and opportunity. So let us borrow from those stories not merely as doctrine, but as historical narratives carrying enduring lessons. The speaker described four “hands” of provision: Man’s Hands God’s Hands Your Hands Your Enemies’ Hands And while the categories are interesting, I would argue they eventually collapse into one central truth: Your hands. 1. Man’s Hands Sometimes provision comes through other people. In the historical narrative of the Exo...
Read more