Wrestling with Grace

Who hasn't been at a point in life where it's just discouraging?  The failure has happened.  The mistake keeps reoccurring.  The problem is overwhelming and maybe even undeserved.  It's just ourselves and the blackness of night. The kosher Christian viewpoint is that He comes to comfort and to give us rest and peace.  And He does.  And sometimes that tap on the shoulder in the night is an invitation to wrestle.  Kind of an oxymoron.  The Prince of Peace shakes our shoulder in our darkest times and says "hey, push back against me."  

Have you ever felt that struggle?  In the dark.  In the night.  In the middle of the hardest thing you've faced.  Have you ever looked at God and said, "I'm pushing back".  I'm praying till you answer me.  Have you fallen and gotten up and fallen and gotten up again until you said God, is this it? Is this all?  

I have.

And sometimes God initiates the struggle.  Like now.  A little sin.  A hidden thing that I could justify and that I could even talk about without it seeming like a sin or an issue to other people.  But it's a little fox, and it would have eaten the fruit in my life.  The good things that God has done.  It would eventually cause devastation.  So God has been shaking my shoulder and saying get up.

I have been arguing.  I have been looking for ways to make it ok.  Grace is saying I love you too much to leave here with this.  This ruin that you want. 

"So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak."Genesis 32:24.

Today in worship we sang the Desert Song and Came to my Rescue.  God is beautiful.  In the strength of His love for us.  In the passion and fury of His pursuit.  In the dirt and the grit and the sweat of His wrestle with my wayward heart. 

This is my prayer in the desert
And all that's within me feels dry
This is my prayer in the hunger in me
My God is a God who provides

And this is my prayer in the fire
In weakness or trial or pain
There is a faith proved
Of more worth than gold
So refine me Lord through the flames ~ Desert Song, Hillside 



"Then the man said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome."Genesis 32.28.

Overcoming is kind of the point, isn't it?  Struggling with God to be beaten into the dust by a divine hand is not the way the story ends.  And it is not the character of God to desire us to be beaten and failed individuals.  That gives me hope.  In the end my frailties and struggles will be overcome.  The story has a happy ending.  That in the end, we may not walk out of a situation unscathed, but we will walk out.  As overcomers.  As conquerors.  As the winners.

That's pretty great.

I called You answered
And You came to my rescue and I
I wanna be where You are ~ Came to My Rescue, Hillsong.