What would a wrestling match...
Illustration
What would a wrestling match with the Lord be like in real life? Is the Lord really so weak and vulnerable that the likes of Jacob could hold him down for the count? What sort of a blessing was Jacob holding out for? Why was it amazing to see the Lord face-to-face and live through it? This text may raise more questions than it answers. But this we know, that somewhere, sometime in all of our lives, there is destined to be such a wrestling match.
Pastor Tim tells about how he wrestled and ran away from the Lord for 20 years. His father, his pastor and several of his teachers encouraged him to go into the ministry when he was yet a fifth grader. Tim could think of nothing that he could do with his life that would be more miserable. He shunned that calling through high school and college. He tried his hand at three different careers but found nothing that would satisfy a deep hunger in his soul. Finally, at the age of 27, he entered the seminary and became a pastor. He tells it as if it were a game of tag. "I ran away from the Lord until he caught me. I resisted this calling with every ounce of my being. But now that I am here, I see that I have been blessed by the Lord. I have wrestled with the Lord and lived through it."
Let us go through our own wrestling matches with such tenacity, and let us not give in until the blessing overwhelms us.
Pastor Tim tells about how he wrestled and ran away from the Lord for 20 years. His father, his pastor and several of his teachers encouraged him to go into the ministry when he was yet a fifth grader. Tim could think of nothing that he could do with his life that would be more miserable. He shunned that calling through high school and college. He tried his hand at three different careers but found nothing that would satisfy a deep hunger in his soul. Finally, at the age of 27, he entered the seminary and became a pastor. He tells it as if it were a game of tag. "I ran away from the Lord until he caught me. I resisted this calling with every ounce of my being. But now that I am here, I see that I have been blessed by the Lord. I have wrestled with the Lord and lived through it."
Let us go through our own wrestling matches with such tenacity, and let us not give in until the blessing overwhelms us.
