DONT TAP OUT

The subject of wrestling has come up for me about three times in the last week or so. Specifically Jacob wrestling with God.

There are many pictures in scripture of what the life of a Christian is to look like with allusions to us being like soldiers, or runners, or perhaps farmers. Some interesting wording in the the questions for a Life-group study this week described us as 'wrestlers'. The way the word wrestlers was used (in the context of the Jacob story) was meant to refer to us as ones who had to struggle but it conjured images in my mind instantly of all my Life-group mates as WWF style wrestlers. And, although it (sort of) worked for Big Daddy (all the current cultural references) no one want's to see me in a tight fitting wrestling costume, I can assure you!

Now we are told that Jacob wrestled with God. He was slightly mismatched.

I once picked a fight with a boy at our secondary school who had been picking on my younger brother. Yes the boy was a bully and had a reputation as a bit of a, what we used to call 'hard nut', but he was in the year below me, so I thought that would even things out a bit. I found out later that the boy's father was a boxing coach and that he had been in the ring training with his brothers since the age of 4. If I knew that I dare say I wouldn't have started this fight.

Anyway, after about 15 minutes of getting hit in the face by this guy, remarkably I was still standing. I say 'still' but that's not strictly accurate. Every 2 minutes or so I had to keep getting up so I could let him hit me some more. I was bloodied, beaten and clinging on to my attacker for support.

'I'm not giving up' I told him. 'No way'. He looked at me in disgust. 'You're pathetic, he said, 'I can't be bothered with you'. He turned to his friend and started to walk away.

I was left there, swaying unsteadily on my feet and I called out to him as he left, 'So it's a draw then?!' He carried on walking and as he turned the corner I shouted after him 'I DIDNT GIVE UP!'

Now it is an overstatement for me to say I didn't lose that fight, because clearly I lost. But, in a way, I won. It may have only been a moral victory, but I doubt he's telling the story about it 33 years later.

Jacob was similarly outgunned. But he hung in there.

When we go through trials with the things that test our faith, so often we give up when it gets hard, and go and take some solace in some substance or sin or other, because it's too hard.

Like the question 'why', for example. That question, in the ring, is a stone cold Badass. It is hard as nails, unyielding as anything and it doles out punishment like it's giving out sweets to kids at Christmas. Some advice I've been hearing a lot in this season is to abandon the question 'why' and start asking the question 'where'. Not 'why am I going through this', but 'where are you in this, God?'

When you are wrestling and some hold or move isn't working, you switch it up and try a different approach. 'Why?' is just gonna keep slamming your head on the canvas.

And when we tap out, or give up too early, all we've been through is for nothing.

And the scriptures tell us that Jacob overpowered the entity he was fighting with. Got him in a choke hold, as it were. But I think the reality is more like that time my bloodied sorry form was clinging on to that boxer kid and saying 'I'm not giving up'. Jacob said, 'I won't let you go until you bless me'. Right there is the character being formed.

We are told in Romans 5: 3-4

we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.

And here it is. He is suffering but he perseveres, and before our eyes, out of the perseverance, in the not giving up, character is born. Character that sets you up for any further struggles, and in that there is hope, especially as Christians, who have the love of God in us, by the Holy Spirit, hope does not put us to shame. But if we tap out early.... guess what? No perseverance, no character and no hope. Just a licking of the wounds, a medication for the pain of disappointment with some substance, or sin or some replacement idol and ultimately, no hope.

And God, who was Jacobs opponent, was he really overcome? Look, he has the power to bless Jacob at any point. Even after the struggle is over, he simply touches Jacob's hip and puts it out of joint. This wrestling, is a picture of God's restraint. It is purely for Jacob's good, though he doesn't know it yet, and in our struggles too, can't we say, without being glib or dismissive of the pain, in all things he is working for the good of  those that love him and are called according to his purposes.

So stay in the fight. Change your approach, and maybe consider getting yourself a half decent tag-team who can take the pressure off you for a while. But stay in and say 'So it's a draw then?!'