“So Jacob was left alone, and a Man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the Man saw that He could not overpower him, He touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the Man. Then the Man said, ‘Let me go, for it is daybreak.’

But Jacob replied, ‘I will not let you go unless you bless me.’”  ~ Gen 32:24+

Christians do not get a grip on themselves when life spins out of control. No. They get a grip on God and thus get a grip on themselves. If you want to get a grip on yourself, you do so by first getting a grip on God. All else will follow. “Seek ye first…” Matt 6:33

Yaakov – Jacob – already had the blessing when he wrestled with God. Jacob had it because, he had previously wheedled it out of Isaac/Esau. In fact, not only did he have it, he had everything he could want in life, humanly speaking. He was a zillionaire by the standards of his day (Gen 32). 

So why wrestle with God to get the blessing again?

My 2 Cents: It needed to be redeemed. Life is not so much taking from the world as it is receiving from the Lord. Jacob needed to receive it from the Lord and be free of his 20+ year, guilty conscience. He wanted to undo his prior taking of it and now receive it from the hand of the Lord. 

~ You receive from the Lord by getting a grip on the Lord. If you have a choice between taking from the world freely or receiving from God by way of a prayerful struggle, the latter is any day better. Things come best, when they come from the Lord (Eccles 3:11). 

Get a grip on the Lord first, before you get a grip on yourself. 

When Esau was forty years old, he married Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath the daughter of Elon the Hittite; and they brought grief to Isaac and Rebekah (Gen. 26:34-35).

House and wealth are inherited from fathers,
    but a prudent wife is from the Lord (Prov. 19:14).