Wrestling with God

It's kind of amazing to me how two different Christians can interpret a scripture in two completely opposite ways. The one that's been on my mind for the last day or so is in Genesis where the story is told of how Jacob wrestled with God.

Last year I was given an enormous personal decision to make regarding a relocation to an entirely new region. Certain "acquaintances" of mine (their terminology, not mine) felt that "God's will" for me was very clear. I, however, did not find it clear at all. When asked about it, I confessed that I was still wrestling with God over the matter. Oh, the response! "Be careful not to wrestle with God about it too long. Remember what happened to Jacob! He wrestled with God and God had to make him lame because of it." Gee, thanks. That makes me feel so much better. Now I have this huge decision to make AND I'm being threatened with divine retribution if I don't come up with the right answer before the buzzer goes off!

The pastor of the church I currently attend has a different perspective, one that really resonates with me, especially where I am at this point in my life. I was in conversation about it with my friend Trish and brought up a message he preached on the subject a few months back. When her husband came home and joined our conversation, he brought up the same sermon without knowing we had already discussed it. Thought that was awesome! But it has put the whole concept of wrestling with God in the forefront of my mind today. You see, my pastor believes that wrestling with God is actually a good thing. He talked about how there are things in our lives that we have to wrestle with God over. The fact that we're even wrestling is good, if for no other reason, because it indicates that God is at work in us and we are recognizing that and engaging Him over an issue. Wrestling with God means that relationship is happening, change is occurring. In fact, I was thinking just last night about the fact that Jacob wasn't really changed into the man he was meant to be until he wrestled with God.

So I think wrestling is a good thing. I think it's a necessary thing for any person who desires authentic spirituality and a close, genuine relationship with God - the kind of relationship in which a person can understand God.

I bring all this wrestling stuff up because if I were to characterize where I have been over the past few months, it is there. I run and I wrestle. Yes, it's as unpleasant as it sounds. But I do so because I believe this is the path I need to take.

My current wrestlings (actually much of my wrestling overall) has to do with the Fundy concept of sin and obedience. Before any Fundies freak out on me, I still believe in the Bible as the authority on these matters. I believe in black and white. I don't believe that I can just pick and choose a "custom fit" salvation plan with a designer Jesus to match. But I'm still wrestling because for the first time in my life I'm admitting that I don't like or understand all the "house rules." I don't want to obey all of them. (There are one or two in particular that I'm really wrestling with at present. They make sense to me when I look at them through my "technically correct" Fundy eyes, but in light of the art and beauty I don't think they're such a big deal.) Being in this position would have freaked me out at one time, and to a certain extent it still does, but when I think about Jacob and what it means to wrestle with God, I think that being where I am and doing what I'm doing is a very good thing. As I told Trish and Dan last night, "I need a better reason to do the right thing than the fact that it's the right thing to do." (I congratulated myself on the fact that Trish seemed to find this a very profound thought. LOL.)

Now as a Fundy, I would have fought with that statement of mine tooth and nail. I would have taken it down like the heresy I would have believed it to be. And there is something to be said for doing the right thing because it's the right thing to do. That's not what I'm really knocking. What I'm really looking for, though, is a more personal reason to do right, a more mature understanding of why God issues certain "house rules." You might say I'm growing up. See, when you're a kid, you're expected to do as Dad says and not ask questions. Then there are the teenage years when a kid needs a bigger reason to do the right thing. It's not enough that "Dad says so." The rules and guidelines need a bigger context than black and white. And through those teenage years, a child might be said to "wrestle" with his parents, but in the end most emerge on the other side as mature adults who are able to interact with their parents on a whole different plane. They've weighed the rules and tested the boundaries. They've owned the guidelines they will live by, and adopted (or rejected) Dad's rules for personal reasons. And in doing so, they've become capable of a much richer, far more mature interaction with their parents than a child with his blind acceptance of commands. It might be said that, in having wrestled with his father, a son comes to understand his father's heart in the commands he gives, while a child's knowledge of that mysterious place is limited.

And so I wrestle. I find myself battling with God over things He says we should or shouldn't do. Sometimes it's because His ways and purposes don't make sense to me. Sometimes it's because they do, but in spite of that I want my own way. But even in this, I sense that some part of His heart is pleased with me, if for no other reason than that I have finally engaged Him on a deeper level and begun to interact with Him in the profound kind of way that really lets Him do in me the kind of thing He does best.

For so many years I obeyed without questioning. I was just like that little child. Dad said it, I did it. It was unconditonal surrender. Now we wrestle, and because we do, He has the chance to really get down beneath the superficial surrenders of an unknowing child to the place where He can do business with the deeper levels of my heart.

One of the problems that I find myself running into as I do this wrestling, though, is that far too often I don't actually wrestle. I just avoid. It's one of the reasons I haven't been to my church in six weeks. It's not that I don't want to be in church. I love my church. I feel safe there, as though God really has some beautiful and meaningful things to teach me there. I feel like there's a place of healing there for the bruises that Fundy-ism left on my soul. But I also have to contend with truth there. I have to face myself honestly when we sing songs to God and I can't mean all the wonderful things that are coming out of my mouth. I mean some of them, but most of them I just want to mean. I also find myself coming face to face with the fact that there are a few very specific house rules that God has made very black and white that I really don't want to pay attention to. In fact, if given the opportunity, I would be more than likely to ignore them and do just as I please.

I suppose this too is part of the wrestling, but it's a most uncomfortable place for me to be in. Playing the role of the submissive child is one that tends to come more naturally to me, so it's awkward and unsettling to be in the place where I can no longer make myself be that child.

I can think of more than one Fundy who would say I'm in a very dangerous place, and perhaps they are right. But I also can't help but think that this journey is God's very strange answer to all my very sincere prayers of Fundy days, and that when I come to the end of it and am sent on yet another, I will say I am glad to have made it and that wrestling with God has made my interaction with Him rich and deep and all that I really wanted it to be.