The Relatable Rascal and His Sweet Surrender

There’s a bible verse, in the book of Psalms, chapter 46 verse 10, where the poet imagines God speaking to those who God loves. In the bible that you might find in the top drawer of a hotel room somewhere in rural America, it reads: “Be still and know that I am God.”

That admonition—”be still”—is translated from the Hebrew raphah, and means to let go, relax, release control, or (my favorite) cease striving.

Psalm 46:10 is the sort of bible verse that gets embroidered into sentimental couch cushions and sold on Etsy, because: Who among us isn’t worn out and weary? We’re so stressed, high-strung, and bent out of shape—it takes the veritable voice of God to get through to us such that we actually give ourselves permission to lay our head on a pillow and take a nap.

I am all for simple, radical acts of self care, especially for the worn out and overworked. That said, I think the deeper sentiment of Psalm 46:10 is this:

Intimate encounter with the divine is always preceded by some kind of surrender.

Have you ever found yourself working so hard to improve your life, to make yourself better, to heal a broken relationship, to heal a broken heart—and no matter how much effort you apply, no matter how much you struggle and strive, you just can’t make your way forward?

Of course you have. You’re human. And struggling and striving is part of the human experience.

Here’s the thing though: It need not be the aim, the end goal, or the final word of the human experience.

You’ve likely been there before: Effort effort effort. Struggle struggle struggle. Strive strive strive.

Until something shifts…

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

There’s a story in the bible about a man who learned the lesson of sweet surrender one night on the bank of a river, at the brink of a breakdown. To understand that story, it’s important to know where this man came from.

His name was Jacob—though, as we’ll soon see, that will change before the sun rises.

Last week I wrote about Rebekah’s life, and her experience of being pregnant with twins that clashed within her. One of those twins was Jacob. He was Rebekah’s favorite son, and he was born hot on the heels of his just-barely-older twin brother, Esau.

As the older of the two brothers, Esau had the privilege of possessing the promise of inheritance of the family’s wealth and legacy—this was Esau’s birthright. When they’d grown up a bit from boyhood, Jacob managed to scheme Esau out of his birthright. Jacob did this with a pot of stew.

It must have been some pretty good stew.

Though, when you read that part of the story, you get the impression that Esau wasn’t too worried about needing all that family inheritance anyways. Esau was more comfortable in wild places, hunting his own supper, than he was in the kitchen cooking up schemes or in the Board room securing legal deals.

Jacob, however, was at home among human dwellings and among their dealings and deceptions.

Later, with their mother’s support, Jacob scams Esau again, but this time in a way that Esau cares a lot about. Jacob tricks their dad, Isaac, into giving him the fatherly blessing that was intended for Esau. This one was more of a spiritual inheritance. Not the material trappings of wealth that Esau couldn’t care less about, but the magical paternal prayer that ordained the future and secured the power of those who were on the receiving end of this prayer.

Isaac was blind in his old age. And Jacob was thirsty for more assurance, for more security, for more promises that his future would pan out, so he takes advantage of the situation by impersonating Esau, and conning Isaac into saying the magical prayer of blessing over him. Over Jacob. Not Esau.

And there are no take backs on things like this. So when Esau finds out about the con he sees red. You can hear him raging: “It’s one thing to essentially outwit me from my inheritance—that’s just stuff—but it’s something else entirely to make a fool of our father and steal my spiritual power in the process.”

Esau resolves to kill Jacob. Their mom finds out, tells Jacob to get out of dodge, and he does. Jacob bolts, and doesn’t come back. Not until we meet him in the story found in Genesis chapter 32, where he’s standing on the bank of the river, looking back at his life so far, and finally confronting the unavoidable uncertainty of his future.

Throughout all the stories leading up to the moment on the river bank Jacob reads more like a trickster than a patriarch. He is an unholy rascal.

After running away from home Jacob spends decades on a whole series of other cons where he bests his uncle, Laban, and gets wealthy at Laban’s expense. Jacob fathers children with four women, two of whom are his cousins, the other two are his slaves.

He is not a particularly honorable man.

If you read his stories you’ll notice, Jacob never stops calculating, playing the angle for the greatest personal profit or—when profit is not available—for the best odds at saving his own skin, whatever the cost.

And when it comes to faith—although God tends to turn up in his dreams with big promises—Jacob’s theology is more transactional—about cashing in on those promises—than it is relational or contemplative or devotional, like the fatih of his father and his grandfather.

Jacob moves through the world true to the name his mother gave him: He is grasper, striver, disrupter, willing to deceive and displace anyone who gets in the way of what he wants.

He’s a rascal. But he’s relatable.

Because what he seems to want is about the same as what most of us want: He wants to know that everything is going to be alright. That he’ll make it through. That he’ll have enough.

Jacob has always been a worrier. Always been striving for more blessing, more security, more assurance about the future.

Up until now Jacob is the man who struggles. He struggles with his brother. He struggles against himself. He grasps at the future with desperation in his clenched fists.

Jacob is you and me any time our worry about the future supplants our presence in the moment.

When we find him on the river bank he’s on his way back home. Back to the site of his first big con. Back to Esau’s turf. And Jacob is understandably worried. He has no idea how this return home is going to go down, but he’s maxed out his luck and skill as a conman, and he’s assessed his options, and sees that his best move to secure the future is for him to confront his past.

Genesis 32 (the end)

So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”

But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

The man asked him, “What is your name?”

“Jacob,” he answered.

Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome.”

Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.”

But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there.

So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and it saved my life.”

The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip.

Maybe you’ve experienced this before: Effort effort effort. Struggle struggle struggle. Strive strive strive.

You’re at war with your thoughts. At war with the world around you. You’re pummeling your own heart with judgement. You’re flooding life with worries about the future.

Until something starts to shift…

You pause in the middle of all your efforts. You don’t let go exactly, not fully, not yet.

But you cease striving.

You quiet the struggle enough to actually look at Who it is you have in a headlock. You quiet yourself enough to listen and hear some sort of a divine whisper: “Let go. Let go. A new morning is dawning.”

But your struggle flairs up. You resist: “No! I will not let go! Not until I get all the assurance that I need!”

Then more quiet.

And you hear this question, not the assurance you were looking for exactly: “Who are you?”

You say your name:

I’m the one who worries.

I’m the one who holds it together.

I’m the one who figures it out.

I’m the one who suffers.

Then there’s silence. And a glimmer in the eye of the one who beholds you. You see them seeing you—seeing right through all your old names for yourself. With a smile, they ask: “I mean really, who are you?”

That’s when the shift settles in. It’s usually—or, perhaps, always—an internal shift. You see how you are making it more complicated than it needs to be. You let go of the stories that you’ve been telling yourself about yourself. You loosen into the possibility that there is another way.

You surrender.

Now, listen close, because this part is very important: The quality of this particular form of surrender is not an I-give-up surrender. This is not resignation. It’s not, “I give up on myself.” Or, “I give up on my health.” Or, “I give up on this relationship.” Or, “I give up on the life I want to live.”

The quality of this surrender is an I-need-help surrender.

It is a sweet and empowering surrender.

Do you see the difference?

To struggle and strive is not the aim of the human experience. But neither is despair or cynical resignation—giving up when we face the inevitable challenges of uncertainty in this world.

Isn’t it fascinating that Jacob never really gets an answer to his question?

But with sweet surrender at the edge of all of his uncertainties he’s confident that it’s God who he has encountered.

And isn’t it fascinating that it’s God who surrenders first in the story?

I don’t know exactly what to do with that, other than to see the all-powerful showing us that the power to bless comes on the heels of some kind of surrender.

It’s that sweet surrender that empowers us to receive, and then also to give, the support that we collectively need in order to survive and thrive, as we move through life with a limp and a blessing.