A Scoundrel experiencing a need for God.....

I was praying for my family and friends in need today....and when I got to Jakob I experienced a refreshing reminder of his name sake, Jacob, son of Isaac.
My son is not a scoundrel..but Jacob son of Isaac was such a man. Conniving, tricking, stealing, lying, cheating...all these to try and receive some type of blessing from God.
When in the middle of the night in the midst of fear, self-inflicted trouble and pain, he wrestled with the Angel of the Lord and said, "I will not stop, I will not let go until I know I am blessed..."
That very night he was changed, physically, emotionally and most importantly spiritually. He went from Jacob, meaning scoundrel and cheat, to Israel, a "Prince with God"
In our most fearful and terrible times of life we wrestle with life not realizing that we are wrestling with God! We wrestle and we fight and we try to hold on and survive, when all the while we are in the presence of God in our struggle and God is wanting us to verbalize what we really need and want, a blessing from Him, a sense of His presence in the midst of the battle...and He wants to change not our circumstances but us. He wants us to become princes and princesses, His children who do not wrestle and fight, but who with faith can come to Him and tell Him how we feel, what we want, and show we know it is He who will provide all that is necessary for our life.
Let us let down our defenses, our restrictions, the walls that we think keep out the "stuff" of life that hurts and with arms wide open embrace the One who loves us, wants to help us, and wants more than anything for us to trust Him to do the work necessary to transform and change us from scoundrels to royalty!