{"id":14489,"date":"2018-02-09T10:10:49","date_gmt":"2018-02-09T15:10:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.discover-grace.flywheelsites.com\/?p=14489"},"modified":"2018-02-09T10:10:49","modified_gmt":"2018-02-09T15:10:49","slug":"wrestling-with-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/discovergrace.com\/wrestling-with-god\/","title":{"rendered":"Wrestling with God"},"content":{"rendered":"

When my husband and I were beginning our family, we wanted to give our offspring\u00a0names of significance. A son\u2019s name was no problem: he would be named Reed\u00a0Harrison Odell after my dad and Mike\u2019s grandfather. The difficulty came when we\u00a0discussed possible girl names. In the end, the only \u201csignificance\u201d of our daughters\u2019\u00a0names is that each is one of the select few girl names that could meet two criteria: 1) I\u00a0liked it, and 2) it was not the name of some girl who seemed annoying to my husband back in school.
\nAs lame as our reasoning may have been, I think we at least did a better job naming\u00a0babies than the patriarch Isaac did. The Bible says Isaac favored the first-born twin\u00a0Esau over Jacob, but I didn\u2019t realize how just how much he favored Esau until I learned\u00a0that the name Jacob means \u201cliar.\u201d
\nCan you imagine growing up in the knowledge that \u00a0your father named you \u201cliar\u201d? If you read Genesis, you will see that Jacob rewarded\u00a0his father by living up to the name he had been given. Jacob manipulated his twin\u00a0brother out of his birthright and later tricked the blind and dying Isaac into bestowing\u00a0his blessing on Jacob instead of Esau as he had intended.
\nFortunately, Jacob not only had an earthly father, he also had a heavenly Father with\u00a0bigger plans for him. Many years later, on a dark night in the desert after an intense\u00a0and painful encounter, the Lord re-named Jacob Israel, which means \u201che wrestles with\u00a0God.\u201d
\nIn the past I\u2019ve always placed the significance of this encounter with God on the\u00a0calling: Jacob\u2019s descendants are the twelve tribes of Israel, God\u2019s chosen people.\u00a0Lately, however, I have been mulling over this re-naming, because something about it\u00a0plagued me. In the first place, although \u201cone who wrestles with God\u201d is slightly better\u00a0than \u201cliar\u2019\u2014 it didn\u2019t strike me as a whole lot better. It\u2019s almost as if God were changing\u00a0Jacob\u2019s name from \u201cdeceiver\u201d to \u201cresister.\u201d
\nSecondly, I have always associated a name change with a change in character or a\u00a0change in purpose. Looking at Jacob\u2019s life history, it seemed to me that he had always\u00a0been a wrestler of sorts, struggling with man and God for his place, his position, his\u00a0significance. After all, this is the kid who came out of the womb grasping his brother\u2019s ankle in an effort to be first. Changing his name to \u201cone who wrestles with God,\u201d\u00a0therefore, seemed more a confirmation of Jacob\u2019s past than a foreshadowing of his\u00a0future.
\nThen I got to thinking: maybe the great change wasn\u2019t in the action, but in the\u00a0preposition. Maybe what changed was that Jacob went from wrestling against<\/em> God, to\u00a0wrestling with<\/em> God. Instead of Jacob fighting against<\/em> God to achieve his own\u00a0<\/em>significance, now Israel would find significance fighting alongside<\/em> God to achieve\u00a0God\u2019s<\/em> purposes.
\nNow, that\u2019s a big change.
\nAs I\u2019ve pondered Jacob\/Israel, I realize I can learn so much from his story. When I live\u00a0my life primarily for myself, I end up wrestling against everyone and everything\u2014\u00a0including myself \u2014 I am ultimately wrestling against<\/em> God. Life lived striving for\u00a0my own gain is profoundly exhausting and devastatingly unsatisfying.
\nWhen I wrestle with<\/em> God, however, then I am partnering with God. We\u2019re on the same\u00a0side. It might still feel like wrestling, as long as I am living in a fallen world with broken\u00a0people, and it will likely still be difficult and sometimes even exhausting.
\nBut it\u2019s right here where image of Jacob that night in the desert \u2014 clinging so tightly to\u00a0God and refusing to let go \u2014 is such a beautiful illustration to me. Although sometimes\u00a0following and loving Jesus feels easy and satisfying, over the course of a long life there\u00a0are certainly times when it feels brutally hard. The temptation so often is to give up and\u00a0quit.
\nI think perhaps the key to wrestling with God is refusing to let go in the hard times until\u00a0I receive the blessing of greater intimacy with Him. Think about it: when you cling to\u00a0something, your hands are occupied; they are unable to grasp for anything else.
\nClinging desperately to Jesus prevents me from grasping for anything less than Jesus.\u00a0<\/strong>The profound thing about this kind of struggle \u2014 wrestling with God and refusing to let\u00a0go \u2014 is that I\u2019m wrestling for the right thing. In contrast to wrestling against<\/em> God , the result\u00a0of wrestling with<\/em> God is blessing and calling and a chance to be part of what He is\u00a0doing in the world.
\nIt may not be easy, but it is supremely and eternally satisfying.<\/p>\n

\n

Written by Grace Oviedo member Mary Odell.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When my husband and I were beginning our family, we wanted to give our offspring\u00a0names of significance. 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