THE STRUGGLE IN THE NIGHT.

Otago Witness, Issue 3993, 23 September 1930, Page 79

THE STRUGGLE IN THE NIGHT.

By the Rev. D. Gardner Miller. I am very fond of dramatic stories. Often when I am reviewing books I forget that I must read with a pen in my hand, so interested do I become when an author knows how to pile up one scene after another until he creates a breathless climax. And yet very few modern writers are worth reading twice. Yon seem to get at one reading all they can give you. But you could never say that about the dramatic stories of the Bible. The authors, with few literary graces, tell their stories with a stark realism that even the passage of time along an avenue from 2000 to 3000 years’ length cannot make stale or wither. I turned the other day to one such story and found it as forceful and as dramatic as ever. It was the story of the struggle in the night. A story in nine verses, consisting of 180 words. It is one of the most dramatic literary miniatures in the gallery of time. You will find’ it in the thirty-second chapter of Genesis. It is about a man who thought he could live his life without taking much thought about God—or, if he had to take God into account, it would be upon certain terms. God has wonderful patience with such men—He sees more in them than we would—but there comes a time when He has to pull them up short, for their own good. The scene where Jacob wrestles with “ Someone ” is gripping and intense. - It is told briefly, as all great stories must be, for the great moments in life are centred more in feeling than in speech. It is the record of a spiritual crisis in the life of a man. It is a flashlight of the turning point in a man’s career. Jacob was a remarkable man in many ways. He was subtle and strong, and his eye was always on the main chance. He believed in success—for himself. A man born to control, he found it hard to submit to the control of One stronger than himself. A selfreliant, scheming, unscrupulous man was Jacob—and God had to hammer him into shape or else he would have died as he lived, leaving a nasty taste in the mouths of those who knew him. The story of his struggle in the night arose out of his plan to return home to the land of his fathers. On the night before he set foot on the territory that spoke with clamouring tongue of the days of his youth, he contrived to be alone. Old memories were tugging him and then he found, as many another man has found, that THE PAST IS NOT DEAD. He had cheated his brother, and the old sin rose up to meet him. He had thought he had slain that spectre long ago, but he now found that it had still power to haunt him. Sin, unless atoned for, has the power of endless life. You may bury it and thus refuse to allow it to torment your conscious life, but that single moment when you are off guard, or when old memories come rushing in unbidden—then, as sure as night follows the day, the sin will come out of its grave’and reproach you. Few of us can look the past in the face without shuddering. Jacob felt like that. But the inherent manliness in him, underlying his wretched selfishness, resolved to face this thing once for all. HE FOUGHT HIS FEARS. Can you show me anything more dramatic than the artless story of his struggle with his better self on that lonely night? He tosses and turns and squirms, but God won’t let him go uutil this thing is righted and he views life with a new perspective.

How true it is that “ man’s extremity is God’s opportunity ”! The climax in Jacob’s life has come, and he must emerge a weaker or stronger man. Paradoxically he comes out both. How striking and picturesque is the author’s summing up, “He touched the hollow of his thigh : and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was strained as he wrestled with him. . . .

And the sun rose upon him as lie passed over Penuel, and he halted upon his thigh”! “ The struggle left him weaker, yet a stronger man ; weaker, for he car ried the mark of it with him all his days, as all men do with whom God wrestles; stronger, for he bore off from it a blessing in the profounder consciousness of God, and of His powei' to do with life what He will.”

To fight with your fears, your sins, your unwelcome memories, is the stiffest fight of your life. But you are not a man unless and until you do it. And I am convinced that you never gain a real victory until “ Someone ” comes to your aid. The new psychology asks you to probe into your mind and take out the hidden thing, hold it up, look it in the face, and then by conscious effort resolve never again to allow it to worry you. All very well, but it doesn’t always work. No sin, no wrong, can ever be forgotten or righted until you have loked at it with God looking on. Peace never settles upon the conscience until, by the grace of God, the conscience has been cleansed of its perilous stuff. You may limp after your struggle with your fears and sins, but you will have a glad heart

and the spot where you and God clashed and wrestled for the mastery of your soul will be for ever holy ground. Jacob didn’t realise it, but God had been follow ing him up all his life. And the moment Jacob gave God a chance (for He never forces an entrance into a man’s life) the struggle took place, for no matter how unscrupulous a man may be God sees possibilities in him undreamt of even by the man himself. Not that Jacob had no further regrets. He found that life was a discipline, not a “ flowing bed of ease.” Life had many sorrows and difficulties in store for him, but he met them as a chastened and renewed man.

Never forget that while your sins may be forgiven the marks of them—and their effects—are not eradicated. But there will be a place, deep-seated and true in your soul, and never again will the haunting terrors of the past assail you. As I read again this ancient (and modern) dramatic story I thought, as I mused, how true it is that

LIFE’S SATISFACTIONS can never be enduring when they are sought for by material means. Jacob thought he had everything worth while until, one lonely night, God met him. Life can never be full until we empty it first. Jacob was born again that night when he met God. Penuel was the name of the place, and Penuel simply means “ the face of God.” There can be no real satisfaction in any man’s life until on the map of his soul he marks a place and says: “ That is my ‘ Penuel,’ for there I forgot my fears, I tried to escape from my past, and 10, I found I was wrestling with God.”