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).