Blue lights flashed in my rear view mirror as the officer approached my truck window. It was 2am on a cool April night in 1996. I was on my way home after a long day of fishing and partying with friends. Escaping didn’t enter my mind—at least not by driving away. I had another escape in mind. Charm. Charisma.
Social capital.

I checked my seat belt and rolled down my window, license and registration at the ready. Sgt. Lewis greeted me and asked if I knew why he pulled me over.  “No sir. Was I going a few over the limit? Been a long day. Just trying to get home. My apologies, officer.” Officer Lewis didn’t flinch as he informed me my speed was fine but my brake lights were not functioning. Relieved, I blamed it on a blown fuse from the boat trailer and promised to replace it in the morning.

He took my license and pulled out his flashlight for a routine look around the cab. That’s when things escalated. He asked me how much I’d had to drink.

Unfazed, I denied his allegation. Accustomed to charming myself out of hairy situations, I assured him I did not drink. But when he glanced at the beer cans in the passenger floorboard and invited me to step out of the vehicle, I knew it was game over.

I promptly failed the field sobriety test. The breathalyzer confirmed what
Sgt. Lewis and I already knew. He arrested me for Driving While Intoxicated,
escorted me into his cruiser, and took me downtown.

I called my dad at 3am. He answered on the first ring and came to pick me up. That was the longest and most awkward ride home—but it had nothing to do with my dad’s presence. He was fine. I was not. Filled with shame, I honestly wanted to disappear. Hot tears of grief ran down my face. We barely spoke. I slunk off to my room.

Sadly, had I made it home that night in my condition—uninterrupted by the law—I would have been in church by 10am. Sitting in the same pew with an unused Bible and a hangover. Making appearances, staying attentive, shaking hands.

I understood social etiquette. I could leverage relational capital. I had a lot of people fooled. Had myself fooled too. Thankfully, God blew the lid off my hypocrisy. It felt like a divine ambush to be honest.

But it was grace—God’s relentless pursuit of a prodigal.

It would be hard to explain the stigma of a DWI in Northeast Arkansas in the 90’s. The people who got those were viewed as trash. Damaged property.
My reputation was ruined. It felt like my life was over, but it was just beginning.

I woke up and realized it was Sunday. My family had left for church. I was alone in my room. I can’t remember ever feeling that alone. Guilt had plagued me for years as I chased joy in all the wrong places. But this was different. Sure, I felt guilty. Rightly so. I had been arrested. But I also felt empty. I didn’t go to church that morning, but I did meet with God. I really met with God. And that’s when my life began to truly change.

We hear about Christian “Breakthroughs” all the time; this book or that study which can change your life, a conference that will restore your marriage. But so often, those experiences and resources fall flat. They over-promise and under-deliver. The personal change we sought eluded us. Why? Because we never face our real issue.

Truly God often meets us in the pew. I would have much preferred that kind of neat encounter. But my problem was that Jesus refused to help the fake me I kept offering him. He was much more interested in the real me. The drunk me driving down Highway 412 at 2am thinking I was headed home after another day of “life on my terms.”

God has to meet us where we are and where most of us are is a deep sense of lostness, alienation, and distress. We’ve avoided the real cause of our problems and learned to charm, cope, and be highly functioning hypocrites—just like a man in the Old Testament named Jacob.

If you don't know the details about Jacob, here’s the scoop: Jacob is your classic narcissist, a manipulator and cheat—from his birth. During their delivery, Jacob grabbed his twin brother’s foot and earned the moniker, one who catches by the heel, i.e. one who usurps, trips up, and cheats others to get ahead.

Years as a second-born son did not humble Jacob. When it came time for their Father to pass on the family blessing, Jacob and his mother hatched a deceitful plan to steal Esau’s blessing. Isaac explained to his oldest son what Jacob had done.

“Your brother came deceitfully, and he has taken away your
blessing.” Esau said, “Is he not rightly named Jacob? For he has cheated
me these two times. He took away my birthright, and behold, now he has
taken away my blessing.” -Genesis 27:35-36

Understandably, that episode introduced serious conflict between the brothers.

"Now Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father
had blessed him, and Esau said to himself, “The days of mourning for
my father are approaching; then I will kill my brother Jacob.” -Gen. 27:41

Aware of her older son’s murderous intention, and ever the coddling mother,
Rebekah sent Jacob away to live with his Uncle Laban where he struggled through 21 humbling years of pay-back. But when Jacob was ready to return home, he was still unchanged. Same ole Jacob. But God was about to upend Jacob’s life and change him. Really, truly change him. But first, the real Jacob had to surface. God put the squeeze on him.

Don’t we all long for that kind of change? We want God to heal our hurts, cure our defects, and change our character flaws. And God can. He wants to. He will. But change doesn’t come easy. We don’t drift into transformation. God has to corner us and cut off the habitual escapes that have deluded us and made change so elusive.

Like my run-in with the law the night of my DWI, God ambushed Jacob in an
all-night wrestling match. But come morning, Jacob was a changed man with a new name.

Maybe you’ve heard the basic storyline: Jacob wrestled with God, and was
finally blessed. God changed his name, his identity, and his character. But the details of that encounter are instructive. God got Jacob alone. God wore Jacob down. God forced Jacob to face his deepest problem—deception. Then God blessed him.

Change is not easy. It’s often traumatic. But it’s glorious. For the next three blogs, I’ll trace the steps we see in Jacob’s grappling match with God—an episode that brought him from Jacob “the Usurper” to Israel “God Fights for me.” He went from “The Cheater to “The Victor.”

Related Sermon | Wrestling With God