I’ll be honest with you. I am starting 2025 in yet another wrestling match with God and I am a little weary (and a bit bruised) from the previous 18 months. And it makes me think about the story in Genesis where Jacob wrestles with God. Do you know that one?
Briefly (you can miss out this paragraph if you want)… Jacob spends the whole night wrestling with a man, who turns out to be God. Then after the wrestling match (during which God injures Jacob’s hip), God blesses Jacob, then he gives Jacob a new name ‘Israel’ (which means ‘wrestled with God’) and then Jacob walks away with a limp.
There is quite a lot about this story that is confusing and doesn’t totally make sense to me, but it is strangely quite comforting. Let me tell you why.
Firstly, it’s the actual act of wrestling. Now I am not, and never will be, a wrestling fan. But when it comes to faith – I am a big ‘wrestle-until-dawn’ kind of girl. Because I think life can be shitty, and when it’s tough, I think we ought to wrestle. Because wrestling is pretty intimate, isn’t it? We have to lean in, get close, body to body, breath to breath. We cry and we question, and we lean into God and wrestle our little hearts out. And of course, in wrestling with him, we get close to him. We hear his heartbeat. We may not hear his voice, but we do get a sense of his presence and his will for us. And it is at these times that I feel him holding me (even if it is a bit of wrestle for God to keep me in his arms!). He does win – he keeps me there and I feel held by him.
Secondly, I think we are changed and blessed through wrestling with God. He can change our hearts, give us peace, help us get through another day, give us the strength to carry on. And in doing this, we are changed. We have allowed God to meet with us in our tears and that changes us and blesses us.
Thirdly, and finally, it’s the limp. This is important. Because suffering, wrestling, or hard times, change us. They leave us with bruises, with scars, with wounds, sometimes maybe even a limp. But we always come out changed. And our scars are important. They show the world that we have lived through the shitty times, and we have survived. More than survived, we have been healed. And that draws people in. People are interested in scars, aren’t they? And that gives us the chance to tell our story. The hope we have for a time when there will be no more tears, no more death, no more suffering.
So yet again, I approach the New Year with a bucket full of worries and a sprinkling of hope. And a certain knowledge that the wrestling with God is not to be put off. Indeed, I am looking forward to that next all-nighter.
Happy New Year.
Alex x
13 January 2025
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