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From Mrs. Charles Cowman, Streams in the Desert, reprinted (Grand Rapids, MI:  Zondervan) August 20.

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And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day (Gen. 32:24)

God is wrestling wit Jacob more than Jacob is wrestling with God.  It was the Son of Man, the Angel of the Covenant.  It was God in human form pressing down and pressing out of the old Jacob life; and ere the morning broke, God had prevailed and Jacob fell with his high dislocated.  But as he fell, he fell into the arms of God, and there he clung and wrestled, too, until the blessing came; and the new life was born and he arose from the earthly to the heavenly, the human to the divine, the natural to the supernatural.  And as he went forth that morning he was a weak and broken man, bu t God was there instead; and the heavenly voice proclaimed, “Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel; for a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.”

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Beloved, this must ever be the typical scene in every transformed life.  There comes a crisis to each of us, if God has called us to the highest and the best, when all resources fail; when we face either ruin or something higher than we ever dreamed; when we must let something go; we must surrender completely; we must cease from our own wisdom, strength and righteousness, and become crucified with Christ and alive in Him.  God knows how to lead us up to this crisis, and He knows how to lead us through.

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Is He leading you thus?  Is this the meaning of your deep trial,  or your difficult surroundings, or that impossible situation, or that trying place through which you cannot go without Him, and yet you have not enough of Him to give you the victory?

Oh, turn to Jacob’s God  Cast yourself helplessly at His feet.  Die to your strength and wisdom in His loving arms and rise, like Jacob, into His strength and all-sufficiency.  There is no way out of your hand and narrow place but at the top.  You must get with God.  Oh, may it bring you into all that is meant by the revelation of the Mighty One of Jacob!  —But God.

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At Thy feet I fall,

Yield Thee up my ALL,

TO SUFFER, LIVE OR DIE

For my Lord crucified.