I’m a ministry ‘rookie’. Less than 10 years.
And there are certain things I don’t understand about church.
We don’t always like to deal with problems.
As Christ-followers, it seems we expect the challenges of life to wrap themselves up and resolve as quickly as the 30-minute sitcoms we grew up watching. When someone reveals a problem we fire a combination of scripture hoping to vanquish it like the foe in a video game. We’re not always comfortable with process when someone deals with life’s twists and turns.
Genesis 32 reveals a story of Jacob wrestling with God. For years I read that story and figured Jacob got what he deserved. You wrestle with God and you’ll walk away with a limp!
Don’t wrestle with God!!
I’m rethinking that now.
God blessed Jacob. Made him the father of nations. Why is that? I don’t know. I have no doubt commentators have written on this for years. I have no new revelations here. But today I look at the wrestle differently.
Jacob never let go of God.
He fought to hang on. It had to be an ugly fight. Not the pansy, stand-back-and-slap-a-little, kind of fight. If he was relentless enough that the angel realized he wouldn’t overpower Jacob… I’d say Jacob was fighting to hang on to God no matter the cost.
I think when God is weeding out deeply rooted stuff there is going to be a wrestle and church needs to be a safe place for that wrestle to happen. What does that mean?
It means messy things like broken marriages, sexual addictions, the loss of a loved one, disease, disability… some will wrestle with God for years as they learn to give their pain/their sin/their will over to Him.
I think the point of blessing came because Jacob never gave up. In fact, that was the moment God renamed him Israel (God-wrestler).
