The Struggle

What’s your battle today?

“There's a wreckage, there's a fire
There's a weakness in my love
There's a hunger I can't control
Lord, I falter and I fall down
Then I hold on to chains You broke
When You came and saved my soul. Save my soul”

We humans certainly like to fight and re-fight the same things over and over.  Even when a battle is done and won, we can tend to revisit the issue and drag it out longer than necessary.  When we have been bound by a challenging situation in our lives and freed from it, our tendency to return to that same struggle is a curious part of our being.  The cliché “the devil you know…” comes to mind.

Today’s selection is another from Tenth Avenue North.  The Struggle paints a great picture of our repeated turning to our battle, especially the battle Jesus has already fought for us and won. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MQcd1wEosw

“So, why, Lord, do I still fail,
Do I wear thin?
Why do I still give in to temptation?
On my own, I am bankrupt,
I don't trust You or take You at Your word
What You've promised”

(On a YouTube-related note, if you have an extra 15 mins today enjoy this video of “Oceans” http://youtu.be/4g-iYws5868 which I wrote about a couple of weeks ago.  Need to see the Holy Spirit moving?  The audience singing along will move you.)

The Bible is full of stories about people struggling with God.  In Genesis, we see our sneaky friend Jacob again.  Remember, he took his brother Esau’s birthright…twice…and although not the nicest thing to do, it is evidence once again of how God uses the imperfect to accomplish the Perfect.  In this part of Jacob’s story, we learn how his name was changed as a part of his struggle.

“So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak.  When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man.  Then the man said, ‘Let me go, for it is daybreak.’  But Jacob replied, ‘I will not let you go unless you bless me.’  The man asked him, ‘What is your name?’  ‘Jacob,” he answered.  Then the man said, ‘Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.’ ” (Genesis 32:24-28)

My favorite part of this story is the meaning of the word “Israel”.  In Hebrew, the last part of the word “-el” is an ancient name for God.  The first part, “yisra-“ literally means “to struggle” or “to prevail”.  As the man with whom Jacob wrestled (assumedly as angel) points out, Jacob “struggled with God”.  What I love is that you can read this in two ways.  One option is to think of the name as “struggling against God”, meaning, constantly battling God and His will for us.  We all do this…I do this.

Jacob is struggling with God, and God knocks him down…literally takes his legs out from under him.  There are many times in our lives when we get thrown for a loop or our world is rocked.  The question we should ask ourselves, it is because we are unnecessarily fighting against something?

But consider another way to think about “struggling with God”.  We can also chose to read this as “struggling, but doing so with God at our side.”  When we are doing something “with” someone, it can also mean that we are doing it together, in partnership, as co-warriors in the fight.  I like this one better, even though I know the other way to look at it is just as true.

“Hallelujah
We are free to struggle
We're not struggling to be free
Your blood bought and makes us children
Children, drop your chains and sing”

So, are you struggling with God as an adversary in a battle, or are you struggling with God as a partner in the fray?  Has the fight left you bruised and battered, limping around?  There is One on whom you can lean, who will gladly fight beside you.  But remember, He already did, and the battle in which you struggle is already won.