"I Object!"

How To Wrestle With God In Faith

Every two months, my family intentionally bonds for 15 days. We eagerly await our evening ritual of watching a sporting event together for about 25 minutes. We love sharing our amazement about athletic ability, courageous tenacity, mysterious back story, and ancient tradition all wrapped together with the bow of unpredictable upsets and athletes launching into the spectators.

Do you want to watch too? It’s sumo wrestling on YouTube. I highly recommend it, especially when you gather as a little group to be amazed together.

The raw passion and courage have captivated us as these very large men (rikishi) wrestle with each other. There are “Pusher/thrusters” who slap down their opponents. The “Mawashi Men” tend to grab the loin cloth (mawashi) of the opponent and lift him out of the ring (dohjo). Men of different weights and sizes face up and battle with amazing agility and speed. We tend to cheer for the underdogs, who may be more than 100 pounds lighter than their opponents.

Speaking of underdogs, have you ever felt like you were in a wrestling match with God? I feel that way every time my expectations and plans are dashed to pieces. Sometimes I just want to file a complaint or objection to what is happening. I know that I am supposed to surrender to God and be grateful, but I just can’t get there right away. I need to have the sumo “fight it out” skill, so that I can be fully convinced and content in all circumstances. If I don’t wrestle, but just suppress my disappointment and frustration, those feelings tend to come out in other ways, and I feel distant from God with smoldering discontent and grumbling in my soul.

I take comfort in the story of Jacob wrestling with God in Genesis 32. Jacob had been lying, cheating, and plotting his whole life, and it worked superficially because, at this point in the story, he is now married and wealthy with many children. His brother, Esau, one of Jacob’s victims, is coming to meet him after a long separation. Jacob is worried about Esau (rightfully) holding a grudge. He cries out to God for help, knowing that he doesn’t deserve God’s help or favor. Jacob has shown disrespect to Esau by stealing his birthright and tricking Isaac, their father, into giving him the blessing that was due to Esau. Now Jacob realizes that he needs to show respect to God in order to get His help. God surprisingly answers his prayer by showing up for a wrestling match.

We need to encounter God personally in order to understand our lives. Would you like God to show up and answer your questions? He will, but it might be through a wrestling match instead of a polite conversation. Wrestling with God is not disrespectful if we do it in faith. Faith means that we believe God exists, and that He has revealed Himself in the Bible. We honor Him by acknowledging that only God is all-powerful, sovereign, just, and good in all His ways. God knows that this world is broken and that sin and injustice are rampant. He knows that we are weak, finite, and sinful creatures. He knows how hard it is to wait on Him, to have faith in an invisible reality, and to endure with patience. Here are the essential skills God gives us to wrestle with Him.

Sumo Skill #1: Get Alone With God

Sumo wrestling is 1:1. There is intense contemplation of the opponent, and all attention is on him. If you want to wrestle with God, you need to get in the ring with Him alone.

Contemplate that God is listening to you right now. Tell Him what’s bothering you. Name it honestly. You are showing God honor and respect by coming to Him first. Realize that everything good you are looking for is found in God.

Remember that God has no dark side. He is holy, holy, holy. He will never lie. He will never cheat or steal. You can believe Him and trust His character. Look at Him as you would look at your opponent in the ring. Analyze Him. See that you are outmatched but He is going to patiently engage with you on your level.

Come, behold the works of the LORD, how he has brought desolations on the earth. He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth; he breaks the bow and shatters the spear; he burns the chariots with fire.

Psalm 46:8-9

Sumo Skill#2: Engage With God’s Truth

The Bible is the key to engaging truth, because only God determines truth, good, and justice. Find a passage like Psalm 37 that describes the gap you are experiencing—the injustice is spreading, the wicked are flourishing, and God’s goodness is hidden. Where are God’s promises? How is God working through this horrible situation? Where can I go when I am struggling with my own sin?

Read it, ask questions, pray, and listen. Sometimes this process takes weeks. Don’t give up. God will answer. You may be the innocent victim of injustice, but remember that Jesus was the only completely innocent victim. You may be the one who sinned and caused pain to someone else. Either way, take a good look at Jesus on the cross. Let the two truths in tension lead you to transformation: Jesus is fully God and fully man, God’s kingdom is here now and not yet fully seen in the world, God is transcendent and immanent, God is just and forgiving, we are by nature sinful and we are infinitely loved by God, God is sovereign and our choices matter.

God always asks more from us than we want to give, but He gives us far more than we could have ever imagined. He wants our whole being, and He gives us Himself. It’s an unbelievable exchange, highly in our favor, but we must sacrifice our pride on the altar. Sumo wrestlers can’t wear clothes—just a mawashi. We can’t wear our pride as we wrestle with God. It has to go. Awe and amazement are the cure to our pride. Discontent will vanish when we see Jesus suffering in our place, giving us new life instead of the death and judgment we deserve.

But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped. For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For they have no pangs until death; their bodies are fat and sleek. They are not in trouble as others are; they are not stricken like the rest of mankind. Therefore pride is their necklace; violence covers them as a garment…. All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence.

Psalm 73: 2-6, 13

Sumo Skill#3: Expect a Blessing

Cynicism, pessimism, and negativity can become the default mode of thinking. What if we expect good, blessing, and peace instead? God is infinite, and He has promised to provide. Don’t believe the devil’s lies: you don’t matter to God; God doesn’t really love you or care about you since He allowed you to suffer; don’t trust God to provide for you—you are on your own. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Trusting God is the secret to abundant, full life.

God Himself is the blessing you need. His verdict on your life is the only one that matters for eternity. Do you wish your parents had blessed you? Do you long for blessing from your spouse or kids or friends? Can you say a blessing on yourself? Life-changing blessing has to come from outside you, and it is only meaningful if it comes from someone who knows you well. When you wrestle with God, you are learning more about Him, and you are experiencing the fact that He knows you better than anyone else. Don’t let Him go until He blesses you. Listen to Him speak your name, and tell you that you are His Beloved.

Who wins the match when we wrestle with God? Clearly God is stronger. We win because we become more intimate with God. God is infinitely valuable, and so knowledge of Him is also infinitely valuable. We get a treasure when we draw near to God. Amazingly, God enjoys time with us too. He will spend eternity showing us His kindness and delight, and we can sip and savor that joy right now as we anticipate being face to face with Him.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

Ephesians 1:3-10

Sumo Skill #4: Enjoy Your New Name

When Jacob and God were wrestling, after Jacob asked for a blessing, God asked Jacob for his name. Obviously God knew Jacob’s name, but he wanted Jacob to admit it, to acknowledge his identity. God renames Jacob, whose name means Supplanter, and calls him Israel, which means He Strives with God. We all have an old name, or an old identity, which can suck us down into despair. Every day we can choose to rise up and live in the new identity that Jesus died to give us: saint, beloved, celebrated, and treasured.

Jacob asked God for His name. Jacob realized that the person he was wrestling was more important than all the people he had sought a blessing from before. God wouldn’t tell him His name (Genesis 32:29). Isn’t it wonderful that we know the Name above all names? Enjoy your new name: you are named after Jesus now (Revelation 3:12).

Visualize what you are putting to death today. Then visualize what is being resurrected instead. Don’t live like your old self, before you knew Jesus—that person has already been put to death. You are not a dead man walking, but a resurrected, new person, walking around as a witness to Jesus’ power and glory.

In the end, you will be blessed to have lost some more of your pride, and surrendered more to God. How healed do you want to be? It’s layer by layer, agonizing and excruciating at times, but the victory is certain and will be worth it all.

“Fight with honor; you will win!”

Put to death therefore, what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.… Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

Colossians 3:5,12-14

Sumo Skill #5: Live Like Royalty

Sumo wrestlers in Japan are treated like royalty. They wear kimonos and are not allowed to drive themselves around. They receive honor from the masses. Here is where my analogy breaks down, because I really don’t want to live like a sumo wrestler (get up at 5 am, wrestle with sweaty men all day, and eat a lot).

Royalty in God’s kingdom is beyond our wildest dreams, both in this life (spiritually), and in the next life (physically). Welcome to God’s family; now you belong here forever. Your life has eternal meaning and purpose. God is proud of you and Jesus calls you His brother or sister. You will see God’s face, and He will live with you for eternity. You will reign on this planet some day—it will all belong to Jesus, and He will share it all with you. Your faith in Jesus at this moment is more precious than all the gold in all the world.

Being royalty in God’s kingdom makes you confident and humble at the same time. Pride and self-righteousness evaporate when we see our King stooping down to wash our feet. We belong to Him, and nothing can separate us from His love. We have the super-powers of contentment, kindness, and meekness which can melt hearts, tear down walls of resentment, and equip us with empathy and compassion for others.

In this [salvation] you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

1 Peter 1:6-7

Sumo Skill #6: Rejoice When You Limp

Jacob was never the same after his wrestling match with God. He always limped around due to God “touching” his hip socket. Isn’t that amazing? He could tell the story of wrestling with God every time someone asked him about his limp. After we finish wrestling, we will realize that we would rather have Jesus than anything else in this world. We might even forget why we started wrestling in the first place, because He is altogether lovely.

Let’s walk around limping and rejoicing. We can form deep community when we are honest about our weakness. We can give our testimony when we allow people to see our scars. We will not have scars in heaven. Only Jesus will have scars in heaven, and He will tell us as many times as we want why they prove that we belong with Him in heaven for eternity.

Now Thomas, one of the Twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.” Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!”

John 20:24-28

Tim Keller’s sermon on Genesis 32 will always be worth listening to, and provided many of the ideas in this article (except for sumo wrestling).

I pray that you and I will learn this essential skill of wrestling with God in this lifetime, because we won’t need to wrestle with Him in eternity. I want to amaze God with my sumo-size faith; don’t you?

Holy Father, please enlighten us on how to honor You as we wrestle with you in faith. Let us encounter You in a personal way today. Let us seek Your wisdom and blessing on our lives. Let us bring you the cares and concerns of our hearts, and find Your compassion and kindness: You know all about our tears, our sighs, and our longings. You are waiting for the day when Jesus returns and makes all things new. Increase our faith, courage, hope, and joy. Amaze us with your power and glory. You are the blessing we need. Let us live in our new identity: children of God, heirs of the kingdom, and beloved by You for eternity. Amen.

Photo by Bob Fisher on Unsplash