To Wrestle with God and Grow

[Celtic-Cross]

Hello all, so I come to everyone with the topic of wrestling with God. Very recently the topic of how Jacob wrestled all night with God and in the morning was blessed by God and given the name Israel, but what stuck out to me was how my pastor was saying to wrestle with God isn't a bad thing. Now as a former wrestler I view to wrestle with someone is to oppose them and I deferentially don't want to oppose God Almighty, however what was later explained was that a Christian who wrestles with God is actually doing a good thing. The way it was explained that day was that it isn't the individual without faith who doesn't pray and is living a good (maybe blessed) life that they're happy with, but the Christian who's struggling against the world and the enemy wondering if they can be praying more and doing more is the one wrestling with God but not so-much against him.
Rather its more like wrestling with sin, the enemy and temptation but winning or resisting for God, and the wondering maybe sometimes critical self-examination of our faith (and if its good enough) is a good thing because it means that we want to improve our faith for God, and that we to are willing to struggle or "wrestle" for blessings or to be blessed as Jacob did.
Admittedly I should've wrote this post soon after the sermon because I may have not have done as good as a job explaining what I learned on this topic (forgot some details), but the main reason I did write this was for myself ask about and expand my knowledge in this topic. So I ask if anyone has a greater understanding of this story and its teaching I would love to know and learn.

-Thanks for Reading

 

[Stringfellow_Hawke]

Hello all, so I come to everyone with the topic of wrestling with God. Very recently the topic of how Jacob wrestled all night with God and in the morning was blessed by God and given the name Israel, but what stuck out to me was how my pastor was saying to wrestle with God isn't a bad thing. Now as a former wrestler I view to wrestle with someone is to oppose them and I deferentially don't want to oppose God Almighty, however what was later explained was that a Christian who wrestles with God is actually doing a good thing. The way it was explained that day was that it isn't the individual without faith who doesn't pray and is living a good (maybe blessed) life that they're happy with, but the Christian who's struggling against the world and the enemy wondering if they can be praying more and doing more is the one wrestling with God but not so-much against him.
Rather its more like wrestling with sin, the enemy and temptation but winning or resisting for God, and the wondering maybe sometimes critical self-examination of our faith (and if its good enough) is a good thing because it means that we want to improve our faith for God, and that we to are willing to struggle or "wrestle" for blessings or to be blessed as Jacob did.
Admittedly I should've wrote this post soon after the sermon because I may have not have done as good as a job explaining what I learned on this topic (forgot some details), but the main reason I did write this was for myself ask about and expand my knowledge in this topic. So I ask if anyone has a greater understanding of this story and its teaching I would love to know and learn.

-Thanks for Reading

That makes a ton of sense to me for sure.

 

[com7fy8]

"Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you." (James 4:7)

"And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful." (Colossians 3:15)

So, we need to submit to God and obey how He personally rules us with His own peace in our hearts.

So, if "wrestling with God" means struggling against Him, no I would not say this is right.

But if we mean wrestling along with God against our own selfish tendencies and lusts and however this evil world would try to control our attention, yes along with God labor against howsoever this evil world would try to get us under its power.

But it seems Jacob was honored because he prevailed against God. I do not understand what Jacob needed to prevail about. What I think of now is how Jesus on the cross turned away our Father's wrath; so in Jesus Christ's submissive and obedient way He stood up to and prevailed against how God's wrath was against us. So, may be this would be an acceptable way of wrestling against God and prevailing. Even so, Jesus did all He did in union and communion with our Father; so it was God's will

So, in case there's anything to this, thank You, God, for this which I just got, myself

God does want to work in us (Philippians 2:13, Hebrews 12:4-11, 1 John 4:17) and change our nature so we are naturally submissive to Him all the time . . . more and more as we grow in Jesus (Galatians 4:19, Galatians 2:20, Ephesians 5:2) and how He makes us pleasing to our Father like He so pleases our Heavenly Father.

 

[St_Worm2]

Hi @Celtic-Cross, what you wrote reminds me in a way of a book, particularly part of the first preface, by Dr. J I Packer called Knowing God. I'll include the part of the preface that I'm referring to, but if you've never read it, I'd recommend it (quite frankly, I don't know any Christian who has that would not recommend it to you as well ).

Here's the excerpt of Dr. Packer's that I was referring to that helps explain his reasoning for writing this particular book:

In A Preface to Christian Theology, John Mackay illustrated two kinds of interest in Christian things by picturing persons sitting on the high front balcony of a Spanish house watching travelers go by on the road below. The “balconeers” can overhear the travelers’ talk and chat with them; they may comment critically on the way that the travelers walk; or they may discuss questions about the road, how it can exist at all or lead anywhere, what might be seen from different points along it, and so forth; but they are onlookers, and their problems are theoretical only. The travelers, by contrast, face problems which, though they have their theoretical angle, are essentially practical—problems of the “which–way–to–go” and “how–to–make–it” type, problems which call not merely for comprehension but for decision and action too.

Balconeers and travelers may think over the same area, yet their problems differ. Thus (for instance) in relation to evil, the balconeer’s problem is to find a theoretical explanation of how evil can consist with God’s sovereignty and goodness, but the traveler’s problem is how to master evil and bring good out of it. Or again, in relation to sin, the balconeer asks whether racial sinfulness and personal perversity are really credible, while the traveler, knowing sin from within, asks what hope there is of deliverance. Or take the problem of the Godhead; while the balconeer is asking how one God can conceivably be three, what sort of unity three could have, and how three who make one can be persons, the traveler wants to know how to show proper honor, love and trust toward the three Persons who are now together at work to bring him out of sin to glory. And so we might go on.

Now this is a book for travelers, and it is with travelers’ questions that it deals.

The conviction behind the book is that ignorance of God—ignorance both of his ways and of the practice of communion with him—lies at the root of much of the church’s weakness today.​

--David

 

[Greg J.]

@Celtic-Cross, you have it right, IMO. What we may perceive as struggling with God is an avenue God uses to purge sin and transform us from the inside out. Furthermore it means you have a strength that God wants to use for good.

 

[aiki]

So I ask if anyone has a greater understanding of this story and its teaching I would love to know and learn.

Jacob wrestled with God in order to obtain from God what he desired. Jacob was not resisting God so much as he was desperately desiring a blessing from Him (Genesis 32:26). He refused to release the "man of God" (Genesis 32:30) until he got a blessing. Jacob, then, wasn't opposing God. It's worth noting, too, that the struggle Jacob had with God left him with a permanent limp - which often happens when God bestows upon a person a special blessing. This is to keep the person humble and dependent upon God which the blessing may tempt a person not to do.

God doesn't want us to do for Him so much as He wants to do in us and through us. Like begets like. A dog begets a dog; a cat begets a cat; and we beget only more of ourselves. The only One who can beget godliness in us is God. And He does this as we surrender (Romans 12:1), yield (Romans 6:13), submit (James 4:7), humble ourselves under His will and way (1 Peter 5:6). This is a counter-intuitive way for most guys. We men want to act, to make our spiritual growth happen, to do for God, but God wants us simply to get out of His way so that He can do for us. We do that, we get out of His way, by getting low before Him and remaining totally dependent upon Him. Jesus wasn't kidding when he said that without him we could do nothing. (John 15:5) He also wasn't kidding when he said that we are only fruitful, not as we fuss and fight to be like him, but as we just abide or remain in him, stay connected like a branch growing from a tree trunk (John 15:1-4). You don't see branches quivering with the effort of staying connected, and growing, and producing fruit. There is no effort at all that the branch makes to grow and be fruitful. All it does is receive the life-giving, fruit-producing sap of the tree. So, too, with the Christian believer. He stays connected, he abides in Christ moment-by-moment, and as he does so he very naturally - almost effortlessly - bears spiritual fruit.

Be very wary of teaching that at all encourages Self-effort. Self and God don't mix. The more Self is active, the less godly we'll actually be. Self, though, can seem pretty pious, pretty righteous and godly. But Self only ultimately begets more of Self. This is why Jesus said,

Matthew 16:24-25
24 ...If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.
25 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.

 

[tdidymas]

Hello all, so I come to everyone with the topic of wrestling with God. Very recently the topic of how Jacob wrestled all night with God and in the morning was blessed by God and given the name Israel, but what stuck out to me was how my pastor was saying to wrestle with God isn't a bad thing. Now as a former wrestler I view to wrestle with someone is to oppose them and I deferentially don't want to oppose God Almighty, however what was later explained was that a Christian who wrestles with God is actually doing a good thing. The way it was explained that day was that it isn't the individual without faith who doesn't pray and is living a good (maybe blessed) life that they're happy with, but the Christian who's struggling against the world and the enemy wondering if they can be praying more and doing more is the one wrestling with God but not so-much against him.
Rather its more like wrestling with sin, the enemy and temptation but winning or resisting for God, and the wondering maybe sometimes critical self-examination of our faith (and if its good enough) is a good thing because it means that we want to improve our faith for God, and that we to are willing to struggle or "wrestle" for blessings or to be blessed as Jacob did.
Admittedly I should've wrote this post soon after the sermon because I may have not have done as good as a job explaining what I learned on this topic (forgot some details), but the main reason I did write this was for myself ask about and expand my knowledge in this topic. So I ask if anyone has a greater understanding of this story and its teaching I would love to know and learn.

-Thanks for Reading

I agree, wrestling with God is wrestling against our enemy which is ourselves. Perhaps this is what Jacob was really doing, since he did ask for blessing from the one he wrestled with.
TD