How to Struggle with God

Genesis 32:22-32; Matthew 10:34-43

Several years ago I took a course in what was called "Conflict Resolution." It was a course that took about a week to complete, but which I felt was important because I was then serving in a parish where there were quite a few conflicts going on between some of the people in the local church. And the purpose of the course was to help pastors and other people who work in the church to help churches through some of the conflicts that they have.

And one of the interesting things that came out of this course that I took was the observation that conflict can actually be good for a church, if it is handled in the right way. For, most often, conflict takes place in a church between persons who love and need their church. Indeed, it is love that often provides the energy for some pretty heated debates that take place in the church. And, furthermore, when it is handled in the right way, conflict can often lead to closer friendships, greater understandings, and deeper commitment. The problem is that people facing conflict, especially within the church, don't often allow the process of conflict resolution to take place, fearing that any conflict at all may actually be some kind of a sin. And, so rather than resolve the conflict, rather than work it through, we often tend to run away from it, or in some way pretend that it doesn't exist.

And this is too bad, because, as our Old Testament lesson for today shows us, conflict can actually lead to growth, especially if it is a struggle with God at its very heart.

Last week we talked about how Jacob had gotten his brother, Esau, to give him his birthright for a bowl of soup. Well, even though Esaw was a dunderhead for doing such a foolish thing, still, it was wrong for Jacob to have been so deceitful. For, if you remember from your Bible studies, not only had Jacob gotten Esau to turn over his birthright, but he had also tricked his old father, Isaac, to give him the special blessing he had been planning to give to Esau, leaving poor dumb Esau with little more than the family camping gear.

You can bet that Esaw was pretty upset with Jacob when he found out what he had done. And it didn't take much in the way of common sense on Jacob's part to realize that if he wanted to live until his next birthday he'd better hit the road.

Nevertheless, Jacob knew that what he had done was wrong. Yet, there wasn't a whole lot he could do about it. After all, a father's blessing is a blessing, whether it is gotten honestly or through deceit. The words had been said. And in those days, even more than in our own, words had power. Once a word had been said there was no turning back. But, as Jacob and his family walked along the road leading away from their lifelong home, Jacob started to think about what he had done and the conflict he was having with his brother. And it began to gnaw on him. And he began to wrestle with his guilt. And, as night came on, the struggle within his soul became so great that he knew that it was the Lord, himself, wrestling with him.

Have you ever wrestled and struggled with something like that? Most of us have. To be sure, when we were in the midst of that struggle we often wished that we could run away from it. But no matter how hard we may have tried, it was as though God would not let us go until we had the struggle resolved.

There is the story of a seminary professor who made a practice of beginning one lecture a semester with the words, "I have lived most of my life on God's second best." Following this remark, instead of devoting the class period to the normal lesson, he would tell them his life story. In his younger days God had called him to be a missionary, but instead of yielding to the call, he turned aside from this course. In fact, he practically gave up Christian work and began a selfish business life, with the primary purpose of setting up a nice home and making money. But, the Spirit of God kept dealing with him and wrestling with him, but there was no yielding. Then after a number of years, one day, there came a message to him while he was in the middle of a business deal. His little girl had fallen out of her high chair at home, hit her head, and died. Sadly, and even though I do not believe that God purposely does these kind of things to get our attention, it nevertheless took that bitter experience to bring this Christian to the place of surrender. After he spent a night alone, wrestling with God, on his knees, in tears and agony, the surrender came. With a broken and contrite heart, he pleaded with the Lord to take up the tangled threads of his disobedient life and make of the wreckage whatever he could. And God heard his prayer.

Does God wrestle with you? If he does, that is surely a sign that God loves you and wants you for something important within his kingdom. Maybe God wants you to do something special with your time, even though you would rather do what you want to do with it. Maybe God wants you to attend church more regularly, or give a little more time to prayer, or take that money you would have spent at Pizza Hut and give it to God, instead. Maybe God wants you to sing in the choir, or join a Church School class, or serve faithfully on a church committee. Perhaps God wants you to be more faithful, or more sensitive, or more loving to your spouse. Perhaps God wants you to spend more time with your kids. Or maybe you've got some fences that God wants you to mend with your neighbors. Or perhaps there's a bad habit that God wants you to change.

Wrestling with God! I don't think it is possible to have an honest and growth producing relationship with God unless it is a relationship wherein God is struggling with us to make us better, to cause us to make some difficult decisions, even to sacrifice.

Two or three years ago our denomination put together a fairly broad based committee from across the church and their job was to put together a new hymnal. And some of the people on that committee were concerned that perhaps some of the more military-sounding hymns in the hymnal should be dropped, hymns like "Onward Christian Soldiers," and "Battle Hymn of the Republic." Their argument was that Christians shouldn't be perceived as caught up in struggle. And, so, as these persons raised their voices the newspapers got wind of it and reported that the hymn selection committee for the new United Methodist Hymnal was considering dropping these hymns.

Well, needless, to say there were more people on that committee who wanted to keep those hymns than there were those who wanted to get rid of them. And, in fact, so many letters and phone calls came in from across America telling the committee to keep those hymns, that there was just no way that they could be left out. So, in fact, those hymns are now, indeed, in the new hymnal. "Onward Christian Soldiers" and "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" are there for all of us to sing to our heart's delight, and to remind us that our life as Christians in this world must be a struggle, not only with God, who wants nothing but our best, but with the forces of darkness, which desperately want us to fail.

If you notice, today I picked a gospel lesson to read, as well as an Old Testament lesson. Very often you'll find that I'll read more than one lesson from the Bible, sometimes as many as three, so that we may hear God speaking to us through his word. And, today's lesson from the book of Matthew described how Jesus put it to his followers, telling them that even though being a Christian is the most wonderful thing in the world, it won't be easy, and there will be difficult choices to make. Jesus warned his followers that sometimes those choices might mean having to choose between what a family member wants us to do and what God wants us to do. Jesus warned his followers that sometimes those choices might mean having to choose between eternal life in heaven or a selfish, pleasure seeking life on earth. The choices are ours to make. And right now, as we sit here in this church together they may seem like easy decisions to make. But, as we leave this place, and as the week rolls on, somehow those choices get harder and harder to make.

Years ago the famous Swedish singer, Jenny Lind, who had won great success and earned a lot of money as an operatic star, left the stage while she was singing her best, and never returned to it. She must have missed the money, the fame, and the applause of thousands, but she was content to live in privacy.

Once an English friend found her sitting on the sea sands with a Bible on her knee, looking out into the glory of a beautiful sunset. They talked, and the conversation drew near to the inevitable question: "Oh, how is it that you came to abandon the state at the very height of your success?"

The quiet answer came: "When, every day it made me think less of this (laying a finder on the Bible) and nothing at all of that (pointing to the sunset), what else could I do?"

In what ways is God struggling with you? In many ways that question is the same as asking, "In what ways does God love you?" Don't tune that struggle out! For it is in the wrestling with God that our faith is made to live! Amen.