The Whole Man (Rewind)
Now Jacob came safely to the city of Shechem, which is in the land of Canaan, when he came from Paddan-aram, and camped before the city. Genesis 33:18 NASB
Safely– Jonathan Sacks translates this passage as, “And Jacob emerged complete.” He points out that Jacob no longer wanted or needed the blessing that Isaac intended for Esau. Things have changed. Jacob has encountered his true identity, wrestled with his past and emerged as God’s chosen one. Sacks comments, “The face that is truly ours is the one we see reflected back at us by God.”[1] Sacks’ translation is a powerful correction to our usual reading of the text. The Hebrew uses two words, yabo and shalem. The first is a verb meaning, “to enter, to come, to bring, to gather in, to be brought.” You will notice that Sacks prefers one of the umbrella translations that captures more than movement from one place to another. This story is not about geography. Consequently, shalem is also much more than arriving without injury. It is about embracing self-identity! Jacob has come home. As Sacks puts it, “Peace comes when we see our reflection in the face of God and let go of the desire to be someone else.”[2]
Who are you? If you’re like me, that’s not an easy question to answer. Often how much of who we are is really tied up in trying to be someone we are not. Trying to please that image held in front of us by a mirror in someone else’s hand. Trying to live up to a family tradition, a social expectation, a mythology of our own making. All the time failing. Not because we couldn’t pretend or accomplish those goals but because reaching them never brought us to completion. We always knew there was something missing. Something inside that said, “You know, this isn’t really who you are, is it?” And yet we didn’t know any other way. We went on trying to find fulfillment in the validation of the other image. We lived for another person’s declaration, “good and faithful servant.” But, of course, until the statement comes from YHVH or His Messiah, it is always tinged with the conditional flavoring of a human assessment.
Who did you want to be? Another difficult question. Most of the time we don’t even bother to ask it. It’s just too uncomfortable knowing that we didn’t measure up. I will never play like Eric, shoot like Peter (Lik), sing like Aretha, paint like Leonardo, think like Albert, write like Abraham, understand like Sha’ul. Was I supposed to? Was I destined for some greatness already appropriated by another? Or am I just ordinary, a plodder along the way, seeking to emerge complete.
Far too often the man I thought I should be gets in the way of the man God wanted me to be. I eat a lot of dirt along that riverbank, wrestling with letting go of the man I thought I was supposed to be. Maybe you do too.
I just want to come home.
Topical Index: safely, shalem, yabo, to come, to enter, to emerge, Sacks, Genesis 33:18
Nobody does Skip better than you.
There is nothing wrong with being “just ordinary, a plodder along the way, seeking to emerge complete.” I count myself as one of them, but my suspicion is that anyone who has followed the injunction of Yeshua to “take up your cross and follow me” is no ordinary soul; though to a unbeliver they may outwardly appear to be of no special ability, character or competency, but their worth is not measured by their walk, but by the choice of their destination and the company they keep as they plod that prosaic path. They may appear to be small, solitary and seperate, but in reality they are never alone, lonely or left.
This is what I learned as biblical meaning of a Hebrew , one who is, or has crossed over.? Love this kind of understanding.
How do we know who God wants us to be ? If all I am surrounded by is worldly things, things in front of me.
Ask for the Creator to give you ‘eyes that see and ears that hear’…I can testify that he does! And that you can trust in him, Emanuel.
(I pray that you come to know that God is with you and you come to know Him who is with you.)
Ah, Richard, then Emmanuel would be living his name! How delightful! Emmanuel – “God with us”, or more literally, “with-us-God”
At 62 these are exactly the things I ponder. I’m getting OK with being a plodder. Especially because for all of my life with God I have ran around like the headless chicken trying to do great things. Now I’m realizing that like Abram all I need to do is live my life lined up with God as best as I can. If He has a special task for me He knows where I am.
“There is no event so commonplace but that God is present within it, always hiddenly.”
“To do for yourself the best that you have it in you to do—to grit your teeth and clench your fists in order to survive the world at its harshest and worst—is, by that very act, to be unable to let something be done for you and in you that is more wonderful still. The trouble with steeling yourself against the harshness of reality is that the same steel that secures your life against being destroyed secures your life also against being opened up and transformed by the holy power that life itself comes from. You can survive on your own. You can grow strong on your own. You can even prevail on your own. But you cannot become human on your own.”
Frederick Buechner
One man’s assessment.
“Embracing self-identity! Jacob has come home. As Sacks puts it, “Peace comes when we see our reflection in the face of God and let go of the desire to be someone else.”[2].
I just came from a 10 days visit to my hometown, to realize “I eat a lot of dirt along that riverbank, wrestling with letting go -the woman- I thought I was to welcoming the woman Yah wants me to be.
Thank you Skip for bringing the word to practical terms.
Thanks Skip!
He has defined my boundaries and in that place I am to be content, thankful and work hard to improve my territory. Although I can become distracted if I am always comparing myself to others success and accomplishments then I can become dissatisfied. The more I work the place He has provided and have continuous relationship with God and others He satisfies my soul.
Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying,
“Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?
And I said, “Here I am. Send me!”
God gets His man. Mission accomplished.
Thanks Skip. This was a right on time reminder.
Skip, previously it was said that we obtain out identity and purpose in community. Maybe that’s the starting place for all of us to wrestle from, from that state of existence. As formed in the womb, so formed in society, then wrestling to be. Maybe being born again is a type of emerging complete,
to again work out our spiritual walk and identity. Does the process really ever consummate?