In Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day: a 40-day Journey with the Daily Office, Peter Scazzero describes Jacob (Genesis 32:22-26, 30) as “manipulative, deceptive, and aggressive — not someone you’d likely nominate for a leadership position in your church. Jacob was a seriously flawed person growing up in a dysfunctional family”. This is the guy who is the father of a nation? Yes, and I’m grateful for that. All the people we read about in the Bible are more than characters in a story. They’re real people who were far from perfect but interacted with the one true God. It’s out of Jacob’s brokenness that God transformed him into a nation.
“In the same way, God sometimes wounds us in our journey with him in order to move us out of an unhealthy, tip of the iceberg spirituality to one that truly transforms us from the inside out. When these wounds come, we can deny them, cover them, get angry with God, blame others, or like Jacob we can cling desperately to God” (Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day: a 40-day Journey with the Daily Office, 28).
Sovereign Lord, the fact that you reveal yourself to us overwhelms me… that you know us and want to know us! That you love us even when we are stubborn and demanding like Jacob. Draw us to a deeper dependence on you. We can only modify our behavior (and we’re not even good at that). Only you can transform us into who you’ve called us to be. Have your way.
Psalm 42:7–8: Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls; all your breakers and your waves have gone over me. 8 By day the LORD commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life.
Reflections on Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day: a 40-day Journey with the Daily Office (Week 1 Day 3 Morning) by Peter Scazzero
