Wrestling with God

I often find that when I am afraid, I tend to wrestle with the world more than I wrestle with God. Think about that for a minute, and you might find yourself in the same predicament. It's rather frustrating because I know the truth about God, and I know God, and I pray for strength, but I still sometimes let fear push me in the wrong directions. The strange thing about this thought is that it came to me as a result of taking pictures at an in-school match for our wrestling team in December. Honestly, watching wrestling makes me terribly uncomfortable on so many levels, but since I am responsible for the yearbook, I felt the need to go support my colleagues who coach, my students who wrestle, and my yearbook staff who will need to create pages for this sport soon.  Maybe you are unfamiliar with wrestling and wonder what could make anyone uncomfortable. If so, the following picture is for you--maybe it will help you understand.

I chose this particular picture because while you won't know either of the wrestlers (unless you're mama, and then it's still probably OK), you will see the level of physical involvement as well as the struggle to prevail that occurs during the match. I wish I could show you all the looks that I captured on the faces of both teams, but in the name of privacy, I really cannot. This particular match went on for quite a while, and one of the opponents grew quite frustrated, drawing several penalties that added up to a loss.

I really don't know very much about the sport of wrestling, but it made me think of Jacob's encounter with God while waiting to meet Esau again for the first time after stealing his birthright from him. Yes, Jacob knew that God had sent him back to the land of his birth (Gen. 31:13, 32:9), but he had snuck away from Laban in fear and was trying to sneak back into the land of his own family while appeasing Esau.  (He remembered the anger of Esau at his deceit and feared he would attack him along with all his company.) As a result of his fear, he send herds of goats, ewes, and rams, along with camels, cows, bulls, and donkeys ahead of him to try to appease Esau and gain his acceptance. As his presents crossed the Jordan in waves ahead of him, Jacob spent the night in the camp east of the Jordan with a plan to send his family and possessions across before him. Genesis 32:24 tells us,  "Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak." While Jacob wrestled with his fears alone, God appeared as a man and wrestled with him physically. I imagine it was much like the match I watched--neither willing to surrender the fight--both putting their all into the match; however, the stakes were much higher. Jacob wrestled for God's blessing and refused to let go until God blessed him, even though his hip had been dislocated earlier in the match by God's touch to his thigh.  Interestingly enough, not until the break of day when Jacob asked for the man's name does God grant the blessing. Jacob realizes he's seen God "face to face" (v. 30) and yet has lived to tell the story with a new name, Israel, because he has wrestled with God and prevailed.

The end is beautiful. As Jacob limps over Penuel at sunrise (or Peniel, as Jacob called the hill where the match took place on the east side of the Jordan river), he looks up and sees his brother with four hundred men coming toward him. At this point, fear could have easily overwhelmed him. He quickly divides his family into small groups and places them in front as planned, but there is now a visible difference in Jacob. He passes in front of the women and children instead of hiding behind them as planned, and bows down seven times, humbling himself until he encounters his brother, who grabs him and kisses him in welcome and then leaves him in favor.

Fear warps our conception of truth. The truth is that God is on our side if we are His children; if we are his children, we have nothing to fear. When Jacob wrestled with his fear, all he got was more worry and anxiety and plans to appease and deceive. But when Jacob wrestled with God all night (as we should do in prayer--taking our supplications to Him first), he prevailed and even earned a new, precious name given by God himself. Sometimes, I think we fear what will happen if we take our fears to God, but doesn't He already know them? He anxiously (but not our kind of anxious) awaits for us to wrestle through them with Him so that He can bless. Wrestling requires a baring of sorts and uncomfortable, intimate contact, but the end result (victory), is well worth the discomfort required.