But, alas! here is where we fail, if one may speak for another. Under the plausible and apparently pious formula of using means, we really cloak the positive infidelity of our poor deceitful hearts; we think we are looking to God to bless our means, while, in reality, we are shutting him out by leaning on the means, instead of leaning on him. Oh, may our hearts be taught the evil of thus acting. May we learn to cling more simply to God _alone_, that so our history may be more characterized by that holy elevation above the circumstances through which we are passing! It is not, by any means, an easy matter so to get to the end of the creature, in every shape and form, as to be able to say, "I will not let thee go except thou bless me." To say this from the heart, and to abide in the power of it, is the secret of all true strength. Jacob said it when the hollow of his thigh was touched; but not till then. He struggled long ere he gave way, because his confidence in the flesh was strong. But God can bring down to the dust the stoutest character. He knows how to touch the spring of nature's strength, and write the sentence of death thoroughly upon it; and until this is done, there can be no real "power with God or man." We must be "weak" ere we can be "strong." "The power of Christ" can only "rest on us" in connection with the knowledge of our infirmities. Christ cannot put the seal of his approval upon nature's strength, its wisdom, or its glory: all these must sink that he may rise. Nature can never form, in any one way, a pedestal on which to display the grace or power of Christ; for if it could, then might flesh glory in his presence; but this, we know, can never be.
And, inasmuch as the display of God's glory, and God's name or character, is connected with the entire setting aside of nature, so, until this latter is set aside, the soul can never enjoy the disclosure of the former. Hence, though Jacob is called to tell out his name, to own that his name is "Jacob, or a supplanter," he yet receives no revelation of the name of him who had been wrestling with him, and bringing him down into the dust. He received for himself the name of "Israel, or prince," which was a great step in advance; but when he says, "Tell me, I pray thee, thy name;" he received the reply, "Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name?" The Lord refuses to tell his name, though he had elicited from Jacob the truth as to himself, and he blesses him accordingly. How often is this the case in the annals of God's family! There is the disclosure of self in all its moral deformity; but we fail to get hold practically of what God is, though he has come so very close to us, and blessed us, too, in connection with the discovery of ourselves. Jacob received the new name of Israel when the hollow of his thigh had been touched. He became a mighty prince when he had been brought to know himself as a weak man; but still the Lord had to say, "Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name?" There is no disclosure of the name of him who, nevertheless, had brought out the real name and condition of Jacob.
From all this we learn that it is one thing to be blessed by the Lord, and quite another thing to have the revelation of his character, by the Spirit, to our hearts. "He blessed him there;" but he did not tell his name. There is blessing in being brought, in any measure, to know ourselves, for therein we are led into a path, in which we are able, more clearly, to discern what God is to us in detail. Thus it was with Jacob. When the hollow of his thigh was touched he found himself in a condition in which it was either God or nothing. A poor halting man could do little: it therefore behoved him to cling to one who was almighty.