Wrestling with God

My therapist told me to listen to a podcast by Greg Boyd from Woodland Hills Church called, "The Wrestlers".  I put it off until last night when I was doing my homework for our Bible study group and one of the questions asked if I was wrestling with God about something in my life right now.  I don't believe in coincidences anymore, so I decided I better listen to the podcast.  Greg was talking about Jacob, the grandson of Abraham.  Jacob wrestled with a man all night.  Turns out the man was God.  The weird thing is that it says the man couldn't win the match and after striking Jacob's hip he asked Jacob to let him go because it was already dawn.  Jacob said he wouldn't let go until the man blessed him.  The man blesses him, changes his name and tells Jacob, who is now named Israel, that he has wrestled with both man and God.  So what does that mean?  I'm not the greatest listener, but what I got from Greg Boyd's sermon is that God wants us to wrestle with him.  Obviously, God could have snuffed Jacob out in a moment, but he wrestled with him all night.  And then God didn't chastise Jacob for wrestling with him, he blessed him and renamed him Israel, which means one who struggles with God. 

There is so much that could be said here, but blogs are supposed to be short or you lose your readers, so I'll stick to the last point Greg made in his sermon and that is God wants us to be honest with him.  Faith is not the absence of struggles.  We struggle with God because in the midst of our faith we go through a lot of junk and hard things in life which often beg the question, "why, God?"  Our feelings of pain, loss, anger, grief and hurt are all real things that accompany life.  God doesn't want me to push them aside and pretend to be a happy, peace filled Christian so I can set a good example by looking good.  He wants honesty.  He wants me to tell him I'm mad or hurt or in pain. And as long as I'm at it, I could learn from Jacob and ask for a blessing, because I don't want to do all this wrestling for nothing!