Wrestle

Wrestle.  In my younger days I was a fan of professional wrestling. My teen age friend Stimp and I went to Richmond to see I don’t remember who, wrestle. We hitchhike back home in the wee hours of the morning but that’s another story. Later, I enjoyed watching Tony Atlas, Gorgeous George, and others on TV.  But you know we have our own personal wrestling matches with mental issues, physical problems and just living day-to-day.  We wrestle with conflict within the organizations to which we belong. We wrestle with whether to ask so and so to marry us. We wrestle with the idea of changing jobs. Sometimes we might wrestle with decisions and sometimes we do not. The way in which we can make good decisions, as you well know, just ask God. Thus, today’s Scripture.

REFLECTION
We turn to Genesis 32:22-31, the account of Jacob wrestling with God.  The text is verse 26b. “But Jacob said, ‘I will not let you go, until you bless me.’” As you know the result was that Jacob had been wrestling with God.  God changed his name from Jacob to Israel because Jacob had been wrestling with God.  Israel’s history is laced with conflicts between God, men, and other nations. Conflict continues even today and all we must do is turn on the TV or read the paper.

But now let us go to the thought for the day. Did you know that you wrestle with God? Every time you seek to decide something, in a sense, you wrestle with God. Your big wrestling match was very much like Jacobs in that it was a decision you had to make to except the relationship than Jesus Christ offers. Or you would have to go on living your own way. Praise God that you chose, as you wrestled with God, to go His way. Was your name changed? Was it changed from Sinner to Righteous Person of God?  How has your decision-making process changed?

Written by Pastor Tommy Markham