Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel

High Plains Drifter:  A Hitchhiking Journey Across America
By Tim Shey

Excerpt from Chapter Seven:

Sometime in July 1998, the Lord wanted me to take a bus to San Luis Obispo, California.  Of course, it seemed to make not a whole lot of sense, so I said, why not?  I took the bus from Ames [Iowa] and went through Denver then LA and ended up in San Luis Obispo.  I slept in a motel the first night.  The second night I slept on a hillside just outside the city.  I was in a Burger King and the presence of God came down on me heavily and I believe the Lord was telling me to go to Santa Fe.  So I got a bus ticket to Santa Fe.

I touched down in Santa Fe in the evening and walked to a motel room and I was not a happy camper.  I have wrestled with the Lord before and I was really wrestling with Him now.  I just couldn't understand why I had to take a bus here and take a bus there, hitchhike here and hitchhike there.  Later, I calmed down and realized that God's thoughts are higher than my thoughts and that I have shared my faith with lots of people on the road.  So I might as well shut up and put up.  I am here to take orders.  The Lord tells me to jump and I ask how high.

I started hitchhiking north out of Santa Fe on the road to Taos.  I got a few rides to Dixon and stopped by to see Mike and Pat Johnson who owned La Chirapada Winery.  I met them back in 1984.  Nobody was home, so I continued north.

This guy picked me up north of Dixon and drove me north of Taos.  When he dropped me off, he shook my hand and said that his name was Israel and that he was Jewish.  He drove off and I stood there semi-stunned:  that is the first time I have ever heard someone called Israel (except Jacob in the Old Testament, of course).

I walked up the highway for a mile and this older guy picked me up.  He drove to his house just north of Questa and I said I would keep on hitchhiking.  I stood there for an hour and then it started to rain cats and dogs.  The guy ran out of his house and told me to get inside because of the rain.  We sat down and watched some TV.  We watched some Spanish TV and then a Christian station.  He told me his wife and daughter were gone and that I could sleep on the couch if I wanted.  The church he attended was just up the road and I was free to come along.

We went to church the next morning---it was a small Pentecostal church.  The text that the preacher used was from Genesis 32: 28:  "And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel:  for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men and hast prevailed."  My jaw just about hit the floor.  Is God's timing perfect or what?  Israel.  Jacob.  Israel.  Lord, what are you trying to tell me?  Remember the guy yesterday whose name was Israel?  Later I looked up the name Israel in Harper's Bible Dictionary and it said, "Israel:  May God strive, contend or rule."

After the service, I got a ride into southern Colorado and, later, into southwest Kansas.  This Christian family picked me up outside Garden City and took me to Cimarron where they let me stay for supper.  The husband drove me to Dodge City and we had a little prayer before I got out.  I stayed in a motel that night.

The next day I walked out of Dodge five miles and this truck driver picked me up and drove me all the way to Hutchinson.  He was a Vietnam vet and had married and divorced twice.  He said something interesting:  he said that if Jesus ever came back, he would hitchhike all over the place just to take a look around before our Father let Him be the King of kings.  I thought that was pretty unique.  You never know who some of these hitchhikers were; they could be angels---or ex-sawmen.

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[Genesis 32: 24-30:  "And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.  And when he saw that he prevailed not against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and the hollow of Jacob’s thigh was out of joint, as he wrestled with him.  And he said, Let me go, for the day breaketh. And he said, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me.  And he said unto him, What is thy name? And he said, Jacob.  And he said, Thy name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel: for as a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.  And Jacob asked him, and said, Tell me, I pray thee, thy name. And he said, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there.  And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved."

Hosea 12: 3-5:  "He took his brother by the heel in the womb, and by his strength he had power with God:  Yea, he had power over the angel, and prevailed: he wept, and made supplication unto him: he found him in Bethel, and there he spake with us;  Even the LORD God of hosts; the LORD is his memorial."]

Intercession
High Plains Drifter:  A Hitchhiking Journey Across America
Clint Eastwood's film High Plains Drifter (1973)
He Walks With a Limp (Jacob)
A Dream about General George S. Patton
The Struggle and the Crown