Prayer: Father, I have wrestled with You and lost. Help me today to convey the futility of wrestling with You. Amen.
Reading: Genesis 32 key: vs. 25
25 So Jacob remained all by himself. Then a man wrestled with him until the break of dawn.
Attention: I had the good fortune of attending a high school which not only had a good football program, but we had one of the top wrestling programs in the state of Washington. I attended the wrestling matches as often as I could and became familiar with the sport.
Wrestling is both an individual sport and team sport. Every weight classes match, adds to the overall team score. I believe that wrestling athletes are some of the most in shape athletes. When I was in junior high school, the physical education instructor at our school was also the head football and wrestling coach. He made sure that we had a section of wrestling for the boys. Since I was an upper classman teaching assistant, I was assigned to wrestle all underclass male students who were my size and bigger. What you learned was that size wasn’t as important as skill, technique, and desire.
Wrestling is such a physical sport, it is hard to imagine that someone could wrestle with the Divine all night long, but that is what the scriptural text says, they wrestled “until the break of dawn.”
Have you ever wrestled with God? Have you ever wrestled God in your mind all night long? Many of us have wrestled with God over a myriad of issues or reasons. I have wrestled over various passages of scripture for years and then God speaks, and my eyes are opened. I recall asking God how King David could be a man after His own heart and commit the sins he committed. Then I lived more life and from my own fallings, repented and discovered what God’s unmerited grace was like.
Followers of Yeshua tend to wrestle with discovering God’s will for their lives. Read the scriptures my friend and God reveals His will for every man and woman. There are numerous scriptures which tell us directly, this is God’s will for us.
Jacob’s wrestling with God gave him a lifelong limp to remember this evening by. Perhaps by testimony, you too have a scar or permanent disability from your wrestling experience. If you are wrestling with God over something, I encourage you to seek resolve. You and the people around you, will suffer until resolve is secured.
Action: I will surrender to God’s will for my life! (Love God with all my heart, mind, & soul; love my neighbor, sexual purity, i.e.)
Yield: I surrender my will to God’s will.
Engage: I engage with God when I yield and surrender to Him.
Relationship: I am in full relationship with God when I surrender to Him.
Prayer: Father, there is a hymn I am reminded of today titled, “Trust and Obey…for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.” Thank you for the reminder today! Amen.
Memory Verse: 1 Thessalonians 4:3
3 For this is the will of God—your sanctification:
to abstain from sexual immorality;
Music Video: Big Daddy Weave—Trust and Obey https://youtu.be/k-LdHCuo5-Y
Remember, “Abide in Yeshua, today!”