Last week, Ashley reminded me of a Biblical story that has become illuminating and life-giving to me in the last year: the Old Testament story of Jacob wrestling with God in the wilderness. If you’ve ever read it, you’ll know it’s an odd story. Basically, Jacob is camping alone on the river, between one bad situation and another. While he’s there, he encounters a mysterious stranger who rouses him for a wrestling match, of all things (you can accuse the Bible of many things, but being boring is not one of them!). He and the stranger—who appears to be a man—wrestle all through the night, each gaining an upper hand one moment only to lose it in the next. The stranger eventually dislocates Jacob’s hip, injuring him but not overpowering him. By the time dawn breaks, Jacob knows this is no mere man; in some mysterious way, he is wrestling with God Himself. So Jacob musters the nerve to demand a blessing of his opponent. Demand is an understatement—he obstinately refuses to let God go until he receives a blessing. God, in his mercy, yields: He renames Jacob “Israel,” meaning “He struggles with God” and blesses him. His twelve sons became the twelve tribes of Israel.
I write out that story first, because it is nothing short of riveting and bewildering. Secondly, I think this story holds the key to how we see our identity as Christians. In one of my favorite books, Inspired, late author Rachel Held Evans explains:
“The significance of this story of family origins to the people of Israel cannot be overstated, for it demonstrates how the dynamic, personal, back-and-forth relationship between God and God’s people is embedded in their very identity, their very name—Israel, ‘because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome’ (Genesis 32:38)... This understanding of themselves as a people who wrestle with God and emerge from that wrestling with both a limp and a blessing informs how Jews engage with Scripture, and it ought to inform how Christians engage Scripture, too, for we share a common family of origin, the same spiritual DNA… if I’ve learned anything from thirty-five years of doubt and belief, it’s that faith is not passive intellectual assent to a set of propositions. It’s a rough-and-tumble, no-holds-barred, all-night-long struggle, and sometimes you have to demand your blessing rather than wait around for it.”
In the past two months here, I’ve felt myself again be roused by that mysterious stranger in the night, and accept his invitation to a wrestling match. As is to be expected in this program, I have already been wrestling with personal, vocational, and spiritual doubt. In our round table discussions, classes, and everyday lives together, we as a Fellows class have been daring to raise difficult questions, to poke and prod at each other’s faiths, to unearth both memories of joy and of sorrow, to push our sleeves up and bare our metaphorical scars for each other. We have been dangerously vulnerable. We have been courageous enough to share our dreams with each other, not knowing if they will be realized. We have dared to wade through the waters of wounding together, trusting God to meet us in the process and ultimately, to bind up these wounds. And I know we are only at the beginning.
I am grateful that this program is pushing me to keep wrestling with God in the wilderness. As we seek to better understand ourselves, each other, and God, it’s inevitable that doubts and fears will rise to the surface. All of this question-raising and doubting is sacred work. It is also human work. To doubt, to struggle, to ask questions about the world around us — this is how we love our neighbors and our God, broaden our horizons, and develop empathy. This work is not only what makes us essentially human, but fundamentally humane.
Already in my two months here, I have experienced wounding and blessing alike. Recounting for my fellows class shameful memories from my past hurts. Hearing their stories of grief hurts. Realizing, for the billionth time, how incredibly broken I am is hard. Realizing that everyone around me sees that brokenness too—and especially realizing how futile it would be to try to hide that brokenness from my Fellows class this year of all years, when we live together and see it all—is even harder. Discovering I have serious holes in my faith is unsettling and unwanted. I’ve already cried a lot here.
But, I’m learning once again, I cannot expect to follow God, to wrestle with Him, and walk away unscathed. Spiritual growth is not possible without struggle and inquiry, so I am grateful that this program and the people in it are testing my faith, pushing me out of my comfort zone, and carrying my burdens with gentleness and grace. Out of the wounding comes the blessing. We cannot expect intimacy with God or each other without vulnerability—vulnerability that can be hard and painful. The blessing of this community in Raleigh goes hand-in-hand with the wounding.
Thank God, God consistently chooses the scrappy, unlikely underdog to bless and favor: if he can bless all people through Jacob—the one who came out of the womb fighting and grabbing the heel of his brother Esau, the quiet and conniving son who tricked his father into giving him the inheritance meant for his brother—than why should I believe that he would not bless me, a broken sinner, too? He already has. And the same truth is yours for the taking, too. This year in Raleigh, and in all my years beyond, I want to keep wrestling with God. I want, like Jacob, to walk off, limping, to the promised land against the rising sun. I will refuse with everything in me to let Him go until He gives me a blessing. For as fiercely as I cling to God, I can be sure that His grip on me is all the stronger.
- Sarah W