About thirteen years ago there was something I wanted so deeply, and I earnestly fasted and prayed about it. All circumstances made it appear that my prayer was going to be answered. And then it all came crashing down, and I was bitterly depressed. I wasn’t happy with God — I took Him off my speed dial. He didn’t come through in the way I wanted. I wrestled with God long into the night. But it was because my prayer was not answered that God eventually led us here to this church for the eleven wonderful years He has given us with this beautiful church family.

Eight years ago Lacy became pregnant, which was an enormous shock to both of us. I didn’t say a word for two days, and I didn’t sleep for a month thinking about all the sleep I was going to lose over the next two years. It took a good month and a half before my heart was changed to excitement about the possibility of a new person in our family. But we became very excited! Lacy passed her first trimester, and then on Labor Day weekend (of all times) she had a miscarriage.

We both wrestled long into the night with God on that one. What was the purpose in all of that? Funny thing about God, try as we might, we just can’t pin Him down! Mystery is so much a part of faith. But like Jacob at the Jabbok, we have found that we need Him so desperately. We are in over our heads most of the time. Apart from Him we are absolutely nothing. God is our Everything. Much of life and much of faith is sometimes simply hanging on and refusing to let go.

Jacob came up against an opponent he could not beat — none of his tricks worked. But what I love in this story is that God doesn’t throw him down and pin him, which would be no challenge to God. God allows Himself to be drawn into a draw. He has no ego at stake. His desire is not to beat us up or beat us down. His desire is to raise us up, restoring us all to what we were meant to be — His friends. But we cannot be His friend when we engage life as a constant effort to put ourselves ahead of others — including God.

Wouldn’t a simple pin have sufficed? Yes, if God had simply wanted to win the match. But that’s not what He wanted. He wanted to win the man! By wrestling God to a draw, but having his hip displaced, Jacob had a continual reminder that his self-sufficiency must come to an end. Having it my way must cease. He learned the very lesson Paul learned — that “My grace is sufficient for your every need.” God’s power is made evident through our weakness, not out strength.

When my boys were younger, I loved to wrestle with them. It drove Lacy crazy because we wrestled all over the house. It was a playful wrestling, and sometimes I would pin them. But a lot of times I would just be ready to pin them and then allow them to throw me off and pin me instead. They even learned great victory dances. I wasn’t trying to win the match — I was trying to win the boys — to bond with them in such a way that they would know I loved being with them, that they were valiant and strong. We kept wrestling till they were teenagers. And one day they ganged up on me and dislocated my thumb. I knew then it was time to give up wrestling.

There was another time God wrestled with man, on a place called the Vio Dolorosa in Jerusalem. This time God let man win. He allowed Himself to be pinned — more precisely — nailed down. Man in all his arrogance and self-righteousness and self-sufficiency threw the Son of God to the ground and nailed Him to a cross. And God allowed it. He, who with His little pinky could have wiped out the entire Roman army, allowed Himself to be pinned. Why? God didn’t care about winning the match. He cared about winning the men and women He came to save. The cross is humankind in all its arrogance against a God who supremely shows His heart. It is the cross that dislocates our self-sufficiency and reminds us that we cannot win in life apart from God. There will always be problems greater than us — always Esaus in the world, and God says, “My grace is sufficient for every need you have. Hold on to Me tightly. When you do, I will change your name to one who overcomes.”

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John S. Byerly is Pastor of Presbyterian Church of the Redeemer in Snellville, GA.

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NOTES
1. John Ortberg, If You Want To Walk On Water, Get Out of the Boat (Grand Rapids, Zondervan, 2001) p. 22-23.
2. Calvin Miller, Encounter At Jabbok, Preaching Today Tape 153.