Hello,
Is it ok to wrestle with God?
Is it ok when you find yourself flat on your back having been flipped
over tragedy’s shoulder to lock horns with God and cry out, “God, I thought you
loved me. How could you let this
happen to me?!”
Is it ok when you have been spun around and around in life’s confusion
to take ahold of God with full-nelson grip and cry out, “God, are you really
here? Are you even real?”
Is it ok when your talents and accomplishments seem to be enough to
light your way through life without God to initiate an escape move and try and
get away from God?
Is it ok to wrestle with God?
One of the biggest tricks of the other side is to spread the message
that it is NOT ok to wrestle with God.
The message says that when life is tough, when life is confusing, when
you feel like you don’t need God……you just have to have faith. Don’t ask questions. Don’t question. Just have faith.
That’s not the message that I hear coming from the Bible. One of the main characters in the Old
Testament, Jacob, finds himself wrestling with God, a wrestling match that God
blessed by giving him a new name, Israel (which means “he wrestles with
God”). And Jesus, himself, tells
the story of a woman who gets a callous judge to wrestle with her, and says
that if such a judge will finally wrestling with a pestering woman, won’t God
quickly jump into the ring when someone for whom he gave his Son has something
with which to grapple with God?
As a matter of fact, Jesus raises the stakes so high about how important
it is to wrestle with God that Jesus says that if people stop wrestling with
God, when he returns he won’t find any faith (Luke 18:8). Wrestling with God doesn’t destroy
faith. It strengthens it. Actually, it is when one stops
wrestling with God…stops asking questions....stops questioning….either because
one believes one shouldn’t question or that no question will stand up to
reasonable thinking…that is when faith is destroyed and one is pinned down by
the world gripped in the scrawny hope and the frail joy that the world can
give.
If you have something with which to grapple with God (AND WHO DOESN’T!),
know this: it is perfectly ok to wrestle with God! Take ahold of God with your anger, your fear, your
frustration, your doubts, your confusion, your disbelief. There may be churches that when you
walk into them you see signs saying, “No wrestling allowed.” But not in my church….not in a
lot of churches. As a matter of
fact, every Sunday in my church Jesus invites us to his table….to commune with
us…to take ahold of us…to grab us with his grace…to wrestle with us.
Is it ok to wrestle with God?
You bet it is…..so…..ready….wrestle!
Have a great week.
God’s grace and peace,(ggap)
Pastor Jerry Nuernberger
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