For years my wife and I served as premarital counselors to the people in our church.   Typically those who showed up were love-struck, sometimes holding hands, always enthusiastic.  And as sure as they were sitting there, they had no idea how much their lives were going to change.  Most new couples understand that marriage will involve changes related to budgets, where they’ll live, what kind of pets they’ll own, how many kids they’ll have, and the general rhythm of schedule.

That’s all true.  For starters.  Those are the “moving-the-furniture-around-the-room” kind of changes.  But there’s another kind of alteration that goes on at a deeper level.  This is change that happens as the unavoidable by-product of sharing space with someone for a lifetime.

And if living with another human being can do this to you, what do you think will happen when you enter a relationship with God?  If we think the changes will only amount to where we’ll be on Sunday morning—bed or pew—then we’re twice as naïve as any starry-eyed couple ever was.

The famous hymn highlights a wonderful truth:  that I can come to Christ “Just as I Am.”  But the follow-up to that marvelous truth is that He will not leave me “Just as I Am.”  Expect change.

Consider spiritual maturity, the most profound of all changes, through the lens of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  While Abraham showcases faith, and Isaac, grace, Jacob displays for us the subtleties and eventual brilliance of transformation.  Truly, when our faith accesses the deep riches of God’s grace, what could happen except a remarkable metamorphosis.

Jacob lived the early part of his life bristling with a natural brew of talents—creative maneuvering, resolve, tenacity, ambition.  Yet all of it existed unaffected by the sanctifying touch of God.

Even many Christians today are satisfied with the thought that God watches over me, or, God will bless me, or, I’ll do whatever I want and God will “cause all things to work together” (a misguided application of Romans 8:28).  Yet, they may not expect their tastes, orientations, preferences, desires, and accordingly, their methods, approaches, and lifestyles, to experience any sort of serious alteration.  In fact, changes to be made are the ones, in our own prudence, that we choose to make.

We have faith and have received grace.  This means as Christians we have experienced the God of Abraham and Isaac.  Still, we may not have substantially touched the God of Jacob.  This aspect of salvation represents the gradual breaking down of our godless elements and subsequent elevation into the spiritual.  Failure to experience it leaves us as little more than saved rascals.  However, God is triune.  He intends His full salvation of Father, Son, and Spirit to fully affect us.

At first, change  sounds exciting.  The setting God chooses to do it in, though—family, church, and work—can be deeply painful.  We might find ourselves wishing God  would choose more comfortable places of operation.  We would much prefer if spiritual change occurred unmoored from other humans—perhaps through inspirations gathered during private devotionals, and Bible study.  No doubt some of it will, but not exclusively.

Nothing, it seems, wrenches prayer forth from a sincere heart like the wounds that come from people.  In this, Jacob provides a clear template.  For instance, a portent even from his birth displays a picture of things to come.  Rebekah, his mother, had complained of turmoil in her womb as her two unborn sons (Esau and Jacob) seemed to wrestle with one another.  Esau was born first, but Jacob came out, holding the heel of his twin brother’s foot (c.f. Gen. 26:26).  That one innocent little reflex was a sign portending his stormy future.  And thus Jacob’s life went on to be characterized by struggles of every sort.

His life was thus dotted with manipulation and negotiation.  Though he sometimes managed to prevail and get his way, he also spent a lot of time reaping the ferocious side effects of that kind of life.  The trail of disillusioned, angry people he left in his wake provided him the most toxic forms of drama.

Yet Jacob kept escaping.  He was the consummate Houdini, always maneuvering out of something.  Unlike the real Houdini though, his escapes would always lead to worse predicaments.

After managing to appropriate his brother’s inheritance, He fled from Esau’s vengeful rage.  In the middle of his flight, God granted him a vision, confirming He would indeed bless Jacob.  But even then, Jacob could not stop negotiating (check out his “generous” business-like proposal to God in Genesis 28:22: “of all that you give me I will give a full tenth to you”).   

Jacob’s getaway, however, was a leap out of the pot, into the frying pan.  While in exile he entered the employ of his conniving Uncle Laban, who financially deceived and abused him at every turn.  In addition, during this time, Jacob married the two daughters of Laban (through Laban’s own trickery, who required pricey dowries for both).  Worse, the women competed against each other, and bickered constantly.

There was no relief for Jacob at work or at home.  When the pressure cooker reached its limit, he did what came natural, utilizing his fallen ingenuity.  He bested his uncle, leveraging Laban’s own flocks to get rich.  While it made life financially easier, the tension between him and his uncle became palpable.  Another relationship had spoiled, and it was time to flee again.

Once more, Jacob escaped into another oven.  For he heard that his previously enraged, and long estranged brother, Esau, was traveling in his direction, intentions unknown.  During the long night before the two met, Jacob agonized, imagining what would happen.  In the midst of those tortured moments, a “divine man” (c.f. Gen. 32:24, 28) wrestled with him until daybreak.  Jacob later said of it, “I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered” (Gen. 32:30).  The strange experience was the summation of what had been happening his entire life—one long battle with God.

At some defining moment, the Man touched Jacob’s thigh (said to be the strongest muscle in the human body).  This one move threw Jacob’s hip out of joint, reminding him that God had more power in his finger than in Jacob’s entire arsenal of native strength.  The wound led to a change of name (from Jacob to Israel), deeply signifying a change of identity.  Nowhere was this transformation more evident than the limp Jacob always bore after the encounter, a sign of one who had wrestled with God.

Even after this turning point (and an anticlimactic reunion with Esau), the process of change was to continue raining its transformative blows upon the man.  And all of it continued to occur within the stresses of family.

Jacob later experienced the sorrow and outrage connected to a cherished daughter’s sexual assault, and sons who later murdered not only the culprit, but the culprit’s entire family and the town they lived in.  If this was not enough, infighting broke out among his children.  Some of  them rose up against his dearest son, Joseph, and sold him into slavery (but made it look to Jacob as though the boy had been killed and consumed by an animal).

Flashing forward to Jacob’s deathbed, we find the final fruit of his remarkable transformation.  He no longer coveted other people’s blessings, but freely gave them–first to Pharaoh of Egypt (Gen. 47:7), and then to the twelve tribes of Israel (Gen. 49:1-28).  At this point his word carried so much spiritual weight that whatever he pronounced upon his sons became an absolute and enduring legacy.  It was the apex of Jacob’s life, and a testimony of the relentless transforming work of God.

The principle, as seen in the ancient patriarch, holds true for us today:

“And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:18).

At any given moment in your life, transformation is taking place.  Don’t mistake interpersonal conflicts as bad luck.  Maybe you’ve noticed that changing jobs, or churches seldom yields the relief you thought it would.  The same aggravations seem to follow you.  Nor should you be insulted by the idea that there’s a bank of godless ingenuity within you, a host of acceptance issues, a rascal whose first impulse lies in avoiding, escaping, and controlling.  It’s there, big and ugly.  You probably think it’s wonderful.  But God isn’t much of a fan.

He has a better look in mind for you—the image of His Son.