Genesis 32:30 So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”

It is astounding to me that God meets with mere men. How do I mean? God has revealed his nature through the prophets, angels and to individuals in times past and in these last days has revealed himself to mankind in the person of Jesus Christ his Son, first as a baby then as Savior of the world. (See Hebrews 1:1 and John 1:14).

The believer first encounters God when God draws him by his Spirit and brings him face to face with Christ on the cross and unveils the individual as a total bankrupt in the presence of love so overwhelming that the sinner can only say “yes Lord, forgive me and wash me clean”. After that the individual begins a new journey with God.

Jacob first encountered God after he had deceived his father Isaac and stolen the blessing which, in the natural, belonged to his elder brother Esau. And that was not his first offence against his brother either because years before that he had swindled his brother out of his birthright. Jacob was on the run for his life when God broke in upon him in a dream at Bethel. What is interesting to me is that God did not appear to him to bring judgment at that time for the wrong he had done. Instead God said: “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac” and pronounces one blessing after another over his life. God looked passed Jacob’s folly to implement his sovereign agenda and fulfill the covenant he had made to Abraham and Isaac.

In Chapter 31 of Genesis, God breaks in upon Jacob again and said: Go back to the land of your fathers and to your relatives and I will be with you.” Twenty years had passed and you could say Jacob got his pay-back in the natural from his father-in-law Laban who in turn deceived and manipulated him. Before Jacob meets up with his brother Esau again, God brings Jacob to a place of surrender. Jacob wrestled with God and learned for himself that God is sovereign over his very life. (See Genesis 32:24–32). That’s personal! Expect your own encounters with God in your day to day life. After all He is the one to whom we all must give account.