Genesis 32:24 says, “Then Jacob was left alone.”  Verse 23 says that he had just sent his wives and children and flocks and everything else that he had, across the Jabbok River into the Promised Land, where he was awaiting an uncertain reception from his estranged brother Esau, who was coming towards him with a large force of armed men.  Now, just for the night, Jacob was left alone where he was, and he had his famous overnight wrestling experience.

There are times when, like Jacob, we are in a sense “left alone”, and are stripped of everything else we have except the Lord.  In those times, like Jacob, we “wrestle” with some of the most basic issues of our lives: what we really believe about God, and ourselves, when all the “props” are gone. 

I have experienced a season like that for the past couple of months, as I have wrestled with dysautonomia/POTS, which had left me unable to work for some weeks, and with a future which was, from a human standpoint, very uncertain.  Although it has been a very difficult time for me, it has also been profitable, in the sense that it has allowed me to see myself stripped of everything — my health, my career, my ministry, possibly my home and many of my possessions and the things I could have gloried in — and made me focus on who I am with God and God alone. 

It is good sometimes to be “left alone” like that.  As painful as the circumstances may be, it is actually a great gift.  It gives you  the opportunity to “wrestle” with what you really believe about God, and who you really are.  It allows you to come out refined and renewed and humbled and blessed through the process, like Jacob was.  If you find yourself in desperate circumstances, then “wrestle” with God — and find out that when everything else is stripped away, and you are “left alone” with Him, that  He is all you really need.