Wrestling with God

http://wanweihsien.wordpress.com/2008/04/03/scripture-homosexuality-and-difficult-truths/

Genesis 32:22-37 tells the story of Jacob wrestling with God...... physically ... wrestling ... with God. I'm afraid that some of the oldest stories in the Bible just seem......unlikely to me. I'm not saying they didn't happen. I just wonder if they are somewhat exaggerated, or if there was some misunderstanding, or if the people or writers were less sophisticated so some things SEEMED like the way they are recorded in scripture.

I know thinking like that can cause doubts in other areas of the Bible. But a man (Jacob) physically wrestling with God and GOD was unable to overcome Jacob? See what I mean? I just don't think this is the whole story.

Seems a lot of stories in the Bible don't give us the whole story. In fact, many stories leave as many questions as they do answers. For example, why is this story even in the Bible? I'm not sure I get the point, any point.

Except that there are times when we do wrestle with God, not physically perhaps, but we wrestle nonetheless. When someone gets sick, when someone special dies, when we are mistreated, when good people are treated unjustly, we want to blame and since God's in charge, He takes the brunt of the blame.

I found the artwork that I've used for this post and see another issue where we wrestle with God. We wrestle, or maybe I should say, we should wrestle with God anytime we are at disagreement with scripture or someone else's interpretation of scripture. I agree with the blogger's notion (that is hyperlinked to the picture) that we too quickly dismiss ideas that we don't agree with. We need to spend more time looking at our own motivations and prejudices. We need to wrestle with God in the sense that we need to search to understand ourselves and our relation with God, then use that understanding to greet others where they are. We must remember that we aren't the judges. We are called to follow, and to be the feet and hands of Jesus. He didn't judge. He accepted. And as a result of His acceptance, growth happened. People were healed. A new way of looking at and to God emerged.

So wrestle with God. Wrestle with scripture. Wrestle with yourself to understand and accept. Jacob did and he won. God will guide us too. Our wrestling can change us, put at hitch in our step, and cause others to meet God. Amen.

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