Give me a blessing

I’ve said many times that I am fascinated by human nature, personalities, and the enneagram. I love to observe people and notice what they do. I can only try to imagine the whys behind their doings, but I enjoy trying. Maybe I am just making up stories in my head to try to explain things I don’t understand, like the Greeks did with their gods. 

Mostly my family just tolerates this in me, but one daughter shares my interest in humans and we have some great discussions about why people act in the ways they do. 

She called the other day with a thought to share. 

Remember in the book of Genesis when Jacob was heading back to his home with all his wives and children? He was afraid to meet his brother Esau because they’d had a little issue over the birthright before he left and it had been a long time since they’d seen each other. Jacob had no idea whether Esau was still mad or what he would do.

So Jacob separated his enormous family into companies: this wife and her children, the next wife and her children, and so on, with Rachel’s group coming last. The hope was that if Esau’s men destroyed any of them, Rachel would be the last to go. And all the other wives said thanks a lot.

Anyway, Jacob wound up wrestling with an angel—that would be an angel sent by God himself. A heavenly being. Not someone you run into on the street every day. 

Jacob must have been pretty strong because the Bible says they wrestled all night. The angel dislocated Jacob’s hip, but ole Jake just wouldn’t give in. 

Finally, the angel said, “It’s morning; let me go.”

It’s morning, y’all. They wrestled literally all night and now the angel had to ask to be let go. Jacob was still prevailing. He was what we call country-boy strong, but he also had an iron will. 

Then Jacob answered the angel,

I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.

Wait, what? 

Let’s understand this. If an angel is a representative of God, then that means Jacob is telling God he won’t give in until he gets a blessing out of it. After all, the angel isn’t the originator of the blessing; that would have to come from God himself. So Jacob is essentially demanding a blessing from God.

And the craziest part of this whole story is that he gets it! God gives Jacob a blessing! Here it is:

Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.

His name is now Israel, and he has power with God and with men. It doesn’t get any better than that.

My daughter and I have had this conversation about enneagram 8s (known as the “challengers”), that they like to push and see if you’ll push back. They start things just to see what you’re made of. They enjoy a good verbal skirmish—not necessarily yelling, but a hearty debate. I’ve seen several 8s in my life do this, so I know what it looks like. If you read the description of the 8 in The Road Back to You (which I recommend as a first book on the enneagram), that is exactly what it says.

Every time I read this story of Jacob wrestling with the angel it leaves me a little uncomfortable. Not that they wrestled—I can understand Jacob defending himself if an angel comes along and starts it. 

The part that makes me raise my eyebrows and take a step back is when Jacob demands a blessing. It’s like a bully who won’t let go of your arm until you give him your lunch money. You want me to let go? Give me a blessing. 

That’s a pretty hard line to draw with God, don’t you think? It makes me so uncomfortable because this is the exact opposite of my personality, which is to eschew any appearance of conflict. And here is Jacob, demanding from God. Let me step over here out of lightning-bolt range.

But here’s the point of this whole story. My daughter wondered if maybe there are times when God waits for us to get to this point. Probably not many, but maybe he doesn’t expect us to be all meek and downcast all the time. Maybe he doesn’t want us to always add the caveat “if it’s your will” when we ask for something. Maybe he wants us to try to change his mind, to move him.

If, as the author of my favorite enneagram book claims, God encompasses attributes of all nine types, then maybe there is a part of him that is waiting for us to stand up straight and tell him exactly how we feel and what we want without mincing words. Stop beating around the bush and just say it. It’s not like he doesn’t know our heart and mind anyway. David did this multiple times; read the Psalms.

I’ll tell my daughter’s story here as an example. She is a very talented musician and was an orchestra teacher in several public schools in middle Tennessee. She is highly sought after as a private violin teacher and has played professionally with the Nashville Philharmonic. She is active in her church and has a healthy group of friends.

She had a great, very full life. But in her early 30s, she was not yet married. She had not yet met one man who she thought was a good match with whom she could build a life and a family, and she was sick of waiting. So she told God that. She told him she was sick of being single and she wanted to get married, and she didn’t sugar-coat how she felt. She did what Jacob did and told God straight-up she wanted a good man.

One month later she met the guy she would marry, and let me tell you, God could not have picked a more perfect man for her. He is everything she needed and wanted. God gave her a blessing.

Now listen, I am not telling you to get all sassy with God and stomp your foot like a petulant toddler demanding a snack right before dinner.

But maybe look at how Jacob related to God. Read some of David’s laments. Both men were brutally honest with the Lord.

Maybe you can be too.