Who are you?

So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. ²⁵ When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. ²⁶ Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”
   But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
 ²⁷ The man asked him, “What is your name?”
   “Jacob,” he answered.  (Genesis 32: 24-27)


I have read this story often and always thought it amazing that God gave Jacob such an experience but as I was asked to look deeper into the story (by God via a book I am reading), tears overwhelmed me at the question the Lord asks Jacob.  "What is your name?"  Who are you?  Are you what I intended you to be?  As I squirmed in my chair, not really wanting to reply, I wonder if Jacob felt the same way.  My answer went something like this.  "I am Joy and no, I am not who you intended for me to be. I have grabbed hold of world's ways instead of finding my identity in you.  I am angry and bitter and unhappy in my circumstance.  I have been betrayed and unforgiving.  I am fearful of becoming vulnerable and have not trusted you with my whole heart."  The answer given here was not always given all at once, or the same things everytime (depending on what my trial was at the time) but none the less it is often the answer that the mirror shows.


Thankfully, The Lord, my Abba, the lover of my soul did not let go of me, nor will He ever, without giving a blessing upon my head, a new piece of truth that shows me that my name is changed.  I am no longer Joy the betrayed, the angry, the daughter of sin but instead JOY, the daughter of the Savior, the beautiful, the forgiven, the lovely, the one made perfect through the love of Christ.  The Lord always finds me as perfect as I sit at His feet.  It is in my forgetting that He has to remind me and He never seems to grow tired of doing so. 


Who are you?  Continue to wrestle with Him as Jacob did, never letting go until He delivers you into a new name.  A name that reflects your true identity in Him.  He loves you.  He is not angry with you and He will never leave nor forsake you.