I once was leaving my office late after a challenging day. Just as I was locking the door, a student whom I barely knew asked if he could speak with me for a few minutes. My initial thought was to ask him to come back tomorrow. I’d already worked later than usual and I was tired, but I noticed something in his eyes, so I unlocked my door and invited him in.

Last week I got to go to Austin, Texas, to interview Colt McCoy for the December issue of Sharing the Victory magazine and our online video ministry. In my line of work, I get to sit down with Christian athletes and coaches on a regular basis and talk about their faith. It’s a dream job, of course, and one that I thank God for every day.

In all of these interviews, I meet a lot of different personality types. There are hard-nosed, intense guys who convey that in their passion for the Lord. Some are more reserved and shy, yet incredibly sincere. Others are just straight-forward, no-nonsense athletes who tell you like it is. It’s such a unique opportunity to see how God’s body has many different parts that function as a whole unit for His glory.

Imagine there is a bank which credits your account each morning with $86,400. It carries over no balance from day to day, and every evening when you lie down to sleep, it cancels whatever part of that amount you had failed to use during the day. And the only variable is that you don’t know when your bank will stop this process. So, what would you do? You would find a way to spend it, right?

In theory, we all have such a bank. It’s called “Time.” Every morning, God credits you with 86,400 seconds. Every night God has to write off as a loss whatever you failed to invest toward a good purpose. This account will not carry a balance over, either.

In this passage, Jacob wrestles with God in the person of Jesus. We know this because the man says, “I have seen God face to face” (Gn 32:30). It could not have been God the Father because John 1:18 states, “No man has ever seen God.” Therefore, we know that Jacob wrestled with God the Son, Jesus.

As they wrestled, Jesus dislocated Jacob’s hip. Every coach knows that athletes need strong legs to compete, especially in wrestling. Without his legs an athlete cannot wrestle; he can only  hold on. That is exactly what Jacob did. He gripped God!