The surest victory in life is when we surrender our will to God. Surrendering our will into God's care is a fierce battle - a war that rages inside the depths of our soul and our psyche - begging the questions - do I need God?; where is God in suffering? Does God love me? 'What is the point of it all?'
In my personal journey the hardest wrought question isn't a question of salvation. To me it has always been easy to trust in Christ's atonement for our sins. Easy?
To me imagine an existence without a Creator God is implausible because the more I study science and history the more aware I become of God's divine energy - the light of love that inexplicably penetrates the darkness of a methodical existence. Some scientists who guise love as a coping mechanism or pure chemistry - while science plays its role in emotions - there is a spirit that moves and is in the deep hearts of our ocean of doubt - there is a silent shout of glory that penetrates our hearts when we look out and see a sky full of stars on a sleepless night. Science is far too complicated and too precise not to have a divine architect and a master planner. Step into the ancient eons of Yellowstone and Zion National Park and even out of the chaos of there creation there is a master divine plan - an energy of unbridled beauty that bursts to life.
Even in the depths of depression and anxiety - my analytical mind searching out and testing every fraction of evidence in search of God - I always came back to salvation. Trust me I have struggled in the darkness - each time I fell away from belief - it was driven by bitterness and anger. It is only in the presence of God's SPIRIT I feel complete peace, hope and discernment. The more I look to discount God, HE keeps revealing HIS truth.
Where I lack trust has been in the day to day wrestling with God on small day to day issues. It is easy to believe that God created the universe(s) and the order of all things - it is too precise and extraordinary for spontaneous combustion of sorts - God's spontaneity is creative but boldly and elegantly precise - able to move freely but still within an order of HIS LIGHT. Of course God, like a CEO is going to care about the big picture issues - the universe and all the laws of motion - but where do we fit in.
I trust in God's love through Christ's redemption. But even then it has been hard to accept my worthiness coming to the Master of the Universe as a loving father. Redemption is an act of grace - but God's grace for me was skewed in my every day life - battered and beaten down by countless years of heartache - trauma and seemingly fickleness on God's part - in truth I was the fickle one - wandering far from the care of the Creator, the Master of the Universe, my loving God - I was lost in the cold, harsh reality of a life that is spent only by the toil of the ground - the curse of Adam - the pain of loss.
We all want to admit we trust God as Christians, but we would be lying behind a veil of pride if we said we never have doubts of HIS Presence, because our human nature is so chained to the temporal ways of the flesh - the carnal world - to fathom a loving God in control of the universe and deigning to care about us - wayward 'parasites' - logic tells us - God is too busy for us. Logic says, Christ died and rose again for your salvation - the rest is up to you.
We wrestle - we debate - we scorn - we shout at God - we turn away - we grasp at our faith with one foot in antagonism and the other in busted bruised hope. Christ faced this sort of doubt on the Mount of Olives (his sweat as blood asking HIS Father to take the cup of death away from HIM if it was the Father's will) and Christ's cry to his Abba, 'Why have you forsaken me.' Christ did not lose faith in spite of the agony of the temporal pain that wrestled in HIS soul = Christ keep his faith steadfastly in the Father's care, casting aside his fears and surrendering to God's will.
In my prayers the past few months the Holy Spirit repeatedly said 'I cannot speak to you until you stop worrying.' The demand to stop worrying in prayer - it frustrated me - how can I stop worrying when I have a desperate need and God seems nowhere to be found. Doesn't God want to hurry up and help us when we are in a state of worry? He does - but we cannot hear the spirit in panic - panic is chaos and disorder - God is peace - we have to let the peace in so we can discern HIS will for us.
The faith questions that cause humanity to break their backs and falter remain most constantly with the smallest of concerns - the petty fears weigh us down and teach us to clutch fear instead of the armor of God's grace in Christ. We get tangled up in day to day fears.
There are big questions about the universe and science and the future of the human race we should be debating God on - yet the flesh is concerned with food, shelter, clothing and our daily lives.
Since my youth I've protected myself by putting a wall of energy around myself - a wall that prevents my opening up to certain people - I guard myself and in guarding myself in fear of betrayal - I also found myself distrusting God. Could he really
So much of my self-worth was lost in trauma. Where was God? Do my hopes and dreams on earth matter? Why won't God answer my prayers? If he is all-loving why do I feel so desperate and abandoned. How can God allow suffering in the world? If I am an heir of Christ - why do I feel so desolate and void of HIS love. I then debate my worthiness before Christ, deliberate on my shame and my guilt...I block the pain by emanating a terse tense shield of attacking energy around me - a method I learned in youth to block pain and disappointment. I'll be the first to admit I've been disappointed in God. I have felt let down and hurt and forsaken. I found that I could trust in salvation - but any temporal concerns on this realm are just vanities God doesn't have time to concern himself with - still I wrestled with God - demanding answers and begging release. Each time I fell down - instead of submitting my will to HIS completely I clutched my guarded heart and prevented God's light from shining in. I wrestled with God - I still wrestle with God.
When we wrestle with God it is a fight we will not truly win because God is the creator of all that is seen and unseen. HE is GRACE, JUSTICE, LOVE and PEACE...darkness is not dark to God because HE is pure light. Christ is from the Father. The Holy Trinity is one - one God - almighty and immortal. God's love and divine wisdom compels us to wrestle with HIM. For only when we 'wrestle' with God can HE bring our impurities to the light and help us find the humility to seek his redemptive salvation. This salvation is more than eternal life - it is about becoming free on this life - of finding the peace to LET GO of all the negative energy and 'vanities' we cling to and almost worship as our God. If I prayed as much as I worried - my soul's foundation wouldn't be so cracked.
Finding redemption is not about escaping suffering on this earth - nor is it a free pass to hedonism. God's grace is deep and holy - a fire that refines and rebuilds. When God tests us HE molds us into a new creation - we are transformed into our best selves.
I am going through this process of letting go and trusting GOD more. God wants to hear our prayers - HE wants us to argue with Him in searching for Truth - but we like Abraham must be willing to listen.
I am going to do a series of blogs about Jacob Wrestling with God.
This is one of the most important faith journeys depicted in the scriptures because it reflects our own personal relationships with God in this life - we are called to God - we aim to seek the blessing of God through worldly measures (Rebekah and Jacob deceiving Isaac and Jacob instead of trusting God's promise; slaving away for Laban...) - God is always waiting to accept us and to teach us HIS ways - our spirit yearns for God - but the flesh is restless in peace and wanders after selfish desires. It is only when we realize that only God is immortal and only HIS presence offers us peace and joy - not the world - but the sheer presence of God - can we return fully to Him to surrender. This challenge of surrender is a battle. Our flesh and ego fight to keep us from TRUTH. I know because I'm in that battle - it is a process of surrendering all my fears to God and learning to Trust.
Jacob's sin and fear of Esau prevented him from resting in God and taking ownership of HIS blessing. It was only when Jacob - desperate, alone and in a state of fear and weakness at Penuel as he fled from Laban into the crossroads of a brother he'd betrayed did Jacob start to truly rely on God. Before Jacob conversed with God - had faith in God, but he did not TRUST in God and not only did Jacob not Trust in God - he Trusted in Jacob-himself and in the spell of lying and manipulation more than God's mercy and truth. Jacob learned his lessons through Laban's trickery - it took Jacob being defiantly broken - ready to wrestle with God not out of ego but in desperation for peace and HIS blessing that Jacob succumbed to God's will.
Genesis 32:22-31English Standard Version (ESV)
Jacob Wrestles with God
22 The same night he arose and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven children,[a] and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23 He took them and sent them across the stream, and everything else that he had. 24 And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. 25 When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. 26 Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” 27 And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” 28 Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel,[b] for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.” 29 Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.” But he said, “Why is it that you ask my name?” And there he blessed him. 30 So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel,[c] saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.” 31 The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip.The symbolism in this short passage pierces the heart of our battle in this life. We are constantly putting ourselves at odds with God - often times purposefully testing HIM out of our feeble faith and astounding doubt. In wrestling with God and surrendering ourselves to HIS blessing we come in strong as a lion - carrying the weight of our anger and worry and fear like a sword of fire - this is a fire that burns us to ash - it is only when we admit the emptiness of our power of the power we clutch - and submit in grace to God's power do we relent. We win the battle with God, not by our merits - but through Christ - and when we wrestle with God - winning the war by submitting to faith, like Jacob we are forever changed. Our limp is one of the flesh - the flesh can not longer keep us enslaved - humility crowns the soul in the triumph of the Holy Spirit.
Did Jacob really wrestle with God? Was it an Angel? Was he really wrestling with his twin Esau? In a bible study with a Rabbi and several Christian ministers we debated this encounter. I think Jacob wrestled with all of the above? How? When we wrestle with God we are forced to examine our life, our past and our present so we can step into God's future plans for us. Jacob buried his guilt over betraying his father and Esau with anger and resentment, hate and extreme fear of His life - much like Cain who did not feel remorse for killing Abel - but had fear of death. Jacob had to be willing to let go of the dead sins of his past, admit the wrong fully and fight the demons of his past before he could cross the river Jabbok - the symbolic crossing to new life. I think Jacob in wrestling with God - had to face down his biggest fear - Jacob had to fight himself - he had to wrestle with the part of himself bound by doubt, hate, trickery, pettiness and all the other inhibitions that blocked him from moving forward into God's inheritance of mercy.
The scariest thing we face in life is confronting our own shadow selves. Many of us try to suppress our 'shadow selves' - only to be at war with ourselves and in this war we rarely bring our faults to God - our lack of faith is something we like to hide behind yet it is a mistress that breaks the fealty of our bond with Christ.
We must all ask God come in like the Angel did in the night - when we are at are lowliest and weakest point - we must surrender ourselves to God, even if we have to fight ourselves and our flesh to claim victory of the SPIRIT.
The good news is God is always willing to intercede with us and to help us. What we must realize is that God does not work for instant fixes - he understands the cancer we cling too in sin and fear and is going to use the best treatment to exorcise it from you - sometimes that means you have to face your anger and wrestle with the pain you long to extinguish - you have endure the pain to let it go.
I buried my anger at my father's hate for years and it swelled up like a cancer of bitterness - it was only until I wrestled with the anger in the presence of God's care - asking God to help me get through the pain and gnawing away at the depths of the anguish did I finally declare victory. God makes us participate because he wants us to learn, to grow and HE understands the depths of endurance in order to obtain a blessing - not by obedience as much as the process of detoxing - the process of metaphorically tearing off an appendage (how often to we walk in fear, judgment, worry, hate...); instead leaning on HIM. When we limp in the flesh as Jacob did - suddenly we find anything but the SPIRIT and will of GOD is emptiness.
This is seen as Jacob goes forth and prepares to meet Esau. Jacob probably wanted God to say 'hey I forgive you and you will never see Esau again.' God doesn't work that way - the forgiveness was an act of grace, but for Jacob to truly surrender to God he had to face down his fears and admit the wrong he'd done to his brother. Esau forgave Jacob. We too cannot hide in the shadows and assume God will ignore our sin - if we truly want to be rid of sin we must 'wrestle' with God's grace and completely surrender to it. It is a gift we must receive and accept with a contrite and humble heart. God will continue to search your heart - purifying it until you can look God 'face to face' and stand in His Glory.
That is why Jacob could not longer go by his earthly name - He became Israel - when we are transformed and reborn in God's grace we are made new and the flesh is no longer our guide - yes we will stumble and wrestle, but the victory has been won. Jacob-Israel recognized his brokenness and understood his desperate need for God's love and HIS blessing. Jacob demanded it because it was all he could do to earn God's help - it was not a merit of obedience or perfection - Jacob won because of God's grace - God heard Jacob's supplication and showed mercy.Prayer:
God of all mercy - we wrestle with our faith as the sins of the world, debilitating suffering and insecurity about our worthiness leads us to crouch in the shadows of doubt. Rest assured we can be healed by the blood of Christ. Cast your light of mercy on us so that we may be made aware of all our darkness - and in acknowledging our sins of the flesh we may atone for our sins and offer up the sorrowful passion of your dearly beloved son Jesus Christ our Lord, to bind our wounds to teach us to forgive and accept forgiveness - to trust in YOU and to walk in the path of your grace. In the wrestling of flesh and spirit we pray that YOUR Holy Spirit will always prevail and keep us in YOUR everlasting light. In our weakness be our strength. In our injustice, be our justice. In our fear, be our hope. In our sin, be our righteousness. Glory to God of all peace - who fights as a warrior for our souls. May we surrender to your will in Christ's name we pray. Amen.
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