Wrestling with God

Today: Genesis 32-34

Have you ever wrestled with God?

I think a lot of people...particularly Christians...are afraid to admit it. Why is that?

It's not like God's offended when people have questions about Him. He's not intimidated. God's no pansy. :)

Today's passage talked about a guy who wrestled with God...literally, but also in prayer. Jacob's prayer was particularly interesting to me. Let's take a look and see what we can learn:

And then Jacob prayed,

"God of my father Abraham,

God of my father Isaac,

God who told me,

'Go back to your parents' homeland and I'll treat you well.'

I don't deserve all the love and loyalty you've shown me.

When I left here and crossed the Jordan

I only had the clothes on my back,

and now look at me—two camps!

Save me, please,

from the violence of my brother, my angry brother!

I'm afraid

he'll come and attack us all, me, the mothers and the children.

You yourself said,

'I will treat you well;

I'll make your descendants like the sands of the sea,

far too many to count.'"

Okay, so here are a few observations I had as I looked at this prayer:

1. Jacob re-stated God's promises back to God...twice.

Why did Jacob do that? It's not like God is someone who forgets what He says, right?

I think Jacob re-stated God's promises partly to remind himself what they were--to say, in essence, "Here's what you said to me, God. I'm trusting You to follow through."

2. Jacob acknowledged God's goodness in His life...and God's history of blessing him.

Jacob was thankful for God's blessings in his life. Acknowledging God's history of goodness was definitely an expression of gratitude to God, but I think it was again a reminder to Jacob himself. It's like he was also telling himself, "God helped me before. He could do it again."

3. Jacob admitted his fear and asked for God's help.

Jacob didn't hide his (very real) feelings and he didn't try to brush them aside and tackle challenges on his own, either. He gave his fear to God and unapologetically asked for God's intervention on his behalf. This reminded me of a quote from the (little known) movie Bounce where Ben Affleck says, "It's not brave if you're not scared." Maybe we could update it to say, "It's not faith if you're not scared."

Faith doesn't necessarily mean denying that you're scared--it's a belief that God is bigger than whatever makes you afraid. Faith is overcoming fear through trust.

Tomorrow: Genesis 35-37