hope and faith.

"But Jacob stayed behind by himself, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he couldn't get the best of Jacob as they wrestled, he deliberately threw Jacob's hip out of joint. The man said, "Let me go; it's daybreak." Jacob said, "I'm not letting you go 'til you bless me." The man said, "What's your name?" He answered, "Jacob." The man said, "But no longer. Your name is no longer Jacob. From now on it's Israel (God-Wrestler); you've wrestled with God and you've come through."

Genesis 32: 22-29 (The Message)

These past few days have been very interesting ones. Coming off four days of 24 hour prayer, God has been at work in the thoughts and hearts of many here at Kaleo; stories of God’s peace touching the frantic, His love impacting the disheartened, and His nature confusing the “wise”.

I would love to put myself in the category of someone who felt God’s peace – I didn’t. It would have been awesome to have God’s peace calm my heart – it didn’t. Instead – I found myself in each one of my prayer times literally pacing the room, desperately engaging God. Even now as I write this blog I have trouble verbalizing what happened – what’s happening.

Lately, I have been praying for a lot of direction, asking God to provide and make himself evident in certain aspects of my life. On occasion, mostly when I feel like it, I will worship and thank God for the things he has done – but not as often as I would like.

This struggle, this uneasy tension, reminds me a lot of the story of Jacob. Here is a man who physically wrestled with God – a man who wrestled with the Creator of the Universe. Not only does he wrestle with Him, he has the audacity to ask God for a blessing. Now, I don’t know about you but if God had me in an arm-bar I’m pretty sure I would not take that opportune moment to ask a quick favour. What is even more shocking is that God complies.

What?

At first this is very confusing, but when I let go of all my preconceived notions of how God works, it starts to become clearer.

Firstly, I think God loves it when we wrestle, when we engage Him. David, a man God called after “His own heart”, has writing hundred of Psalms of lament, supplication, and pleas. Recently, I just went through a crisis with one of my friends and coming out on the other end I know things are better between us than two weeks ago. The process was not easy and pleasant, but there is something so raw and good about wrestling with issues, confronting friends.

Secondly, God wants us to prevail. He wants us to come out of the other end of that wrestling match with a renewed vigour. The problem lies – and as I write this it is becoming clearer – in the fact that sometimes we don’t want to come out the other end. Personally, I would like to hold onto everything I can to complain about before God. We dwell in our “woe is me” state for so long that we actually start to believe it. This is the power of darkness, and the only way to come out of it is to deny yourself. Period.

A friend once told me change is like growing asparagus. You can water them, give them lots of sunlight, and even talk to them. But you may not see anything external, anything visible. That is, until one day, before you know it you’ve got asparagus.

I write this now with hope and faith.

Hope that God will prevail.

Faith that God will bring me out of this with a renewed desire for nothing of me and everything of Him.

Hope that God is working at St. John’s in ways I cannot see or put measure too, and faith that it is in ways that are beyond my limitations and calculation.

Dear brothers and sisters I would invite you to pray for me. Pray that this time of wrestling would ultimately bear good fruit for the glory of God.

“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” (Phil 4:4)

Jake