Oh Lord, My Hip (I'm Broken, But Blessed)

What Are Fathers Made Of?

What are Fathers Made Of?

A father is a thing that is forced to endure childbirth without an anesthetic.

A father is a thing that growls when it feels good--and laughs very loud when it's scared half to death.

A father never feels entirely worthy of the worship in a child's eyes. He's never quite the hero his daughter thinks, never quite the man his son believes him to be--and this worries him, sometimes. So he works too hard to try and smooth the rough places in the road for those of his own who will follow him.

A father is a thing that gets very angry when the first school grades aren't as good as he thinks they should be. He scolds his son though he knows it's the teacher's fault. Fathers are what give daughters away to other men who aren't nearly good enough so they can have grandchildren who are smarter than anybody's .

Fathers make bets with insurance companies about who'll live the longest. Though they know the odds, they keep right on betting. And one day they lose.

I don't know where fathers go when they die. But I've an idea that after a good rest, wherever it is, he won't be happy unless there's work to do. He won't just sit on a cloud and wait for the girl he's loved and the children she bore. He'll be busy there, too, repairing the stairs, oiling the gates, improving the streets, smoothing the way.

God Broke His Will

Jacob’s past is on the way to meet him, as Esau is quickly approaching with evil in his heart, and revenge on his mind. Jacob truly lived down to the meaning of his given name. His name means “to follow, be behind,” but it can also mean “to supplant, overreach, or heel.” It can also mean “may God protect.” Jacob was strong-willed and self-sufficient, but that was not was God wanted in him. “Jacob’s past pushed him to a place of purposeful pain.” The word wrestled in Hebrew means “he showed forth his strength.” If Jacob had been unable to best Esau physically before this fight, now he couldn’t even run from him. He was alone, afraid, and completely broken—just where God wanted him to be.

God Blessed Jacob

In the middle of the fight, Jacob struck up a conversation. The attacker wants Jacob to let him go, but Jacob has other plans for the attacker. Remember that Jacob stole both Esau’s birthright and blessing with cleverly concocted plan with his mother, but now he asks the attacker to bless him. He realized that this physical altercation was about something much bigger. The wrestler responded by asking what is your name, and Jacob responded with the identity he had for himself....

Jacob Blessed God for his Limp

Just like he had done when he woke from his dream of the ladder to heaven, Jacob responded to God’s presence with the shock that his life had been spared. And yet his life would never be the same, because he was now limping because of his hip. This suggests that any man God will create something in that person’s life that makes him despair of his own strength and lean on the Lord’s instead. Jacob’s limp, in fact, was so significant to his blessing that when the author of Hebrews mentioned Jacob’s demonstration of faith, he mentioned Jacob’s walking “staff” Heb. 11:21. It’s as if out of all the colorful scenes in Jacob’s life, the writer of Hebrews wanted to say, “In the end, Jacob was a man who was forced to lean on God.”