The Blessing in the Wrestling

My heart hurts. My mind is tired. My spirit is crushed. My soul longs for relief. I have been wrestling with God.

This week our nation was rocked when the Supreme Court of the United States of America handed down a hugely controversial decision in support of gay marriage. I'm embarrassed at the way many Christians have handled themselves. Christians on both sides of the debate have said and done things that dishonor the name of Christ, fueling the fire of hatred and giving unbelievers even more reason to suspect that we are indeed hypocrites. And we are. I've come to the conclusion that it's not that we don't want to love our neighbors; it's that we genuinely don't know how. Practically speaking, we don't know what that kind of love looks like. It's time we find out before more damage is done.

The only way to find out how to truly love God with all of our hearts and to truly love our neighbors - yes, all of our sinful, homosexual, heterosexual, adulterous, lying, cheating, stealing, envious, slanderous, gossiping neighbors- is to wrestle with God. I've been studying Genesis 32:22-32, the story of Jacob wrestling with God through the night. Jacob had stolen Esau's birthright. Remember that story? When his mom, Rebekah, attached animal skins to Jacob's arms and Jacob posed as Esau and stole the blessing from his father, Isaac? Jacob was one messed up dude. He ran away, fearing for his life and along the way picked up not one, but two wives for himself. He worked seven years to marry his beloved Rachel, but then Laban gave him his daughter Leah instead. So he worked seven more years for Laban so that he could marry Rachel too. Jacob had a big fight with Laban and took off with all his wives and servants and children and animals. Then he heard Esau was around looking for him. Jacob had royally messed up, burned bridges and made a general mess of his life. And then one night out in the wilderness, in the middle of his mess, Jacob went off to be alone. And then Genesis 32:24 comes out of nowhere and says, "...and a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day." This man was God himself.

We don't get to know many more details. What we do know is that "the man", who was not just any old man, but God, saw that Jacob was not to be defeated in this ultimate wrestling match. He touched his hip socket and from that point on, Jacob walked with a limp. Because when you wrestle with God, you don't walk away unscathed. God asked Jacob to stop wrestling with him and let him go, but Jacob said, "Not until you bless me" and in that moment, God changed Jacob's name to Israel because he said "you have striven with God and prevailed".

I don't know about you, but I've never physically wrestled with God. But boy, I sure can relate on a spiritual level. This week, I have been wrestling with God and I am begging him for his blessing. I have so many questions-

     How can some people interpret the Bible to say that homosexuality is not a sin?
     Can you really be a Christ-follower if sin doesn't grieve you? 
     Is homosexuality a worse sin than other sins?
     What does it look like to stand firm in the truth of God's Word while loving my neighbor?
     How can some Christians spew such hateful venom about this topic?
     What does it look like to love my homosexual friends like Jesus does?

   
These are just a few of the questions I have wrestled with God over this week. Sometimes we begin to wrestle with God, but in exhaustion or frustration, we give up. We don't prevail. We are defeated. But sometimes, when we stick with it, when we beg for his blessing, when we allow him to wreck who we used to be and create a new person in us, then he blesses us just like he did Jacob.

I still have lots of questions. I think that pleases Him. He could've spelled everything out for us in black and white. He could've told us all exactly what to do in this specific situation. Instead, he gave us some general guidelines in His Word and then He told us to Seek HIM. Not to seek answers to all of our questions or solutions to all of our problems. He told us in Matthew 6:33 to seek first His kingdom and then all of these things will be added to you.

He wrestles with us because He wants to give us His blessing in the wrestling.

Keep wrestling, my friend.