Wrestling With God

Wrestling is one of the oldest forms of combat sport. It dates back thousands and thousands         

of years. Cave drawings of the sport help us to recognize that wrestling has been around for as long as humans have been around. It seems to me that part of the reason why wrestling is one of the earliest sports is that unlike soccer, football, tennis, or the newest sport, pickleball, ancient men and women didn’t need any equipment to play this sport. All they needed was another person who was willing to engage with them.

Just like any other sport where there’s a winner and a loser, there’s also a winner and a loser in wrestling. But when we wrestle with God, it is neither a combat sport nor is there a winner or a loser; it is a kind of tussle, a wrestle, a contending where the goal is for a deeper knowledge and trusting relationship with God.

All through the time that I became conscious of myself and later when I became aware of a gratifying opportunity to be in a relationship with God, my life has been one of wrestling with God. My wrestling with God is now more profound than it used to be. This is partly because there are numerous situations that invite this sort of wrestling. Again, it is not an attempt to win or lose, it is about understanding, it is about appreciating what this stuff is all about, it is about my ability to surrender in trust that God will take care of all the stuff. It is about whether I have put God to the test - and if God has ever come through for me. My wrestling with God is less about what I trust God to do and whether God will do it, and more about if I can crossover the one threshold that affirms all that I have come to know and believe about God.

There’s a story in the Old Testament where many years after he defrauded his brother Esau of his inheritance, Jacob was returning to the land of his ancestors. On the night before he met with his brother Esau, Jacob wrestled with an unknown man (he was actually wrestling with God) to the point where the unknown man dislocated his hip. When dawn was breaking, the unknown man demanded that Jacob let him go, but Jacob held tight to the man and asked the man to bless him before he let him go.

The unknown man then asked him his name. "Jacob is my name," he answered. As part of the blessing, the unknown man then changed his name from Jacob to Israel. For those of us who may not know, Israel means wrestling with God. Throughout its history, Israel has always wrestled with God.

Our wrestling with God consumes every facet of our lives. Much as we contend with God, we contend with loved ones, neighbors, colleagues, friends, and with our own selves. We wrestle with issues big and small, all in an attempt to know, grow, and build enduring relationships.

But until we realize what the goal of our wrestling is, we will always be drained by it. To wrestle with God is not for the faint-hearted. It is a difficult task, but it is worth every ounce of it. Through this wrestling, our hip would be dislocated but we should yet hold on to this strange man until he blesses us with a name change. I believe that there wouldn’t be any growth without the wrestling,

As I have shared before, one of the books I read during my sabbatical was The Courage To Be Disliked. In it, there’s this part about a well. According to the authors, the average temperature of water in a well, no matter the weather outside of the well, is 18 degrees. When you drink water from the well in the summer, it feels cooler because the weather is warm. And when you drink the water in the winter, it is warmer because it is cold. The temperature of the water never changes because of what is happening outside of the well - it remains the same.

The point is that the hardest thing for each of us is to stay at 18 degrees, to stay at even keel like the water in a well. Things and life around us might change, but to maintain an 18-degree composure, where you are unaffected by the change around you, is to be so grounded in God. Being grounded in God is only made possible when we have come to know God through our experience of God.

But the question is, can we maintain the same 18-degree state or composure in the face of something devastating - like the fires in Los Angeles, unjust - like segregation, unfair - like Jim Crow, and hate against those who may differ from us? That is hard to say.

I learned that to grow, we must learn to work harder on ourselves. Honestly, working hard on ourselves is part of our wrestling with God. Growth happens when we work on ourselves, when we wrestle with God, when we contend with God, and when we have an experience-based relationship with God.

What I find most exciting about the story of Jacob is that despite the discomfort of the wrestling and the dislocation of the hip, he realized an enormous blessing - which came with a name change.

God can and does change so many things about us, but we have to pick a few dirt along the way, and that’s how wrestling becomes so integral to the growth of our relationship with God. It is the wrestling that makes it possible to experience God. Carl Jung was once asked if he believed in God. This was his response:

“I don’t need to believe in God, I know God.” 

This is the knowledge that comes with wrestling with God because you have come to know God through your experience of God.

I have no doubt that God is the other party who is always open and willing to engage with us and wrestle with us, but are we ready to wrestle with God? I pray that we open ourselves up to engage - for that is one way that we can know and grow in our relationship with God. 

Manny+