Today, we’re doing a little bit different kind of show—we’re going in depth into the life of Jacob.  We all know what he did—the lying, the deceiving, the cheating—and many of us may have wondered just why God would have “allowed” him to be “the one” through whom the Messiah would come.  But Jacob wasn’t just ‘allowed’, he was specifically chosen by God to become Israel, who would sire God’s special, chosen people.  I was asked years ago to do a presentation at a women’s retreat on Peniel, the place where Jacob wrestled with God.  What I found in the preparation was the why behind all of Jacob’s behavior, and I found a man who wanted the right things, but being sinful, just like us, he ended up going about it the wrong way. This was the first presentation at that retreat, designed to get the women there to face their own sins—and many, like me, started seeing myself in Jacob’s actions…so let’s dig in to that presentation, called “Peniel”.