Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Lent - a time to wrestle with God… even it means pulling an all-nighter! (Genesis 32:24)

SCRIPTURE: Genesis 32:24 (TM) – larger reading Genesis 32:22-32
But Jacob stayed behind by himself, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.

STORY:
Watchman Nee tells the story of his stay in China with twenty other Christians. The bathing accommodations were inadequate in the home where they were lodging, so they went for a daily dip in the river. 



On one occasion, one of the men got a cramp in his leg and began sinking fast. Mr. Nee motioned to one of the other men, who was an excellent swimmer, about the drowning man. To his astonishment, however, the man did not move. He just stood there and watched the drowning man.

Mr. Nee was agitated, but the swimmer was calm and collected. Meanwhile, the voice of the drowning man grew fainter and more desperate. Mr. Nee hated the swimmer who just stood and watched on the shore when he could have jumped into the river and rescued the drowning man. As the drowning man went under for what looked like the last time, the swimmer was there in a moment, and both were soon safely on shore.

After the rescue, Mr. Nee chewed out the swimmer, accusing him of loving his life too much and being selfish. The response of the swimmer revealed, however, he knew what he was doing. He told Watchman that if he had gone too soon, the drowning man would have put a death grip on him and they would have both drowned in the river, and he was right. He told Mr. Nee that a drowning man cannot be saved until he is utterly exhausted and ceases to make the slightest effort to save himself.

OBSERVATION:
Jacob struggled with God. Do we? Have we? Lent is a time to struggle with God. Jacob struggled long and hard. All night long he wrestled with God.

We can and often do become too comfortable with our relationship with God. We begin to take it and him for granted. It is just my opinion, but I believe that when our relationship with God becomes a “buddy-buddy kind of thing” it is time to go to the mat in a life-or-death struggle. Jacob wrestled through the night. Jacob became the victor only because of the struggle. Now, Jacob did come up with a limp because there ought to be definite change in us when we wrestle with God.

It was a Christian from China who commented that in America our Christian faith comes too easily. There are no life or death challenges. Our freedom has made it cheap. There is no cost, no struggle to us believing.

Our Lenten journey usually includes a few moments here or a few moments there where we pray, mediate, read a few verses of scripture and then go off and do our normal life things. Too often I am as guilty as the next person, but where’s the struggle with that? Jacob wrestled all night long. Now the last time I wrestled with anything all night long it was do to the fact that I had eaten something that didn’t agree with me… but with God? To be honest, I didn’t even pull an “all-nighter” when I was in college no matter how bad my grades where.

Here is to a fruitful Lenten struggle!

We are climbing Jacob’s ladder

We are climbing Jacob’s ladder

We are climbing Jacob’s ladder

Soldiers of the cross



Ev’ry round goes higher, higher

Ev’ry round goes higher, higher

Ev’ry round goes higher, higher

Soldiers of the cross



Sinner, do you love my Jesus?

Sinner, do you love my Jesus?

Sinner, do you love my Jesus?

Soldiers of the cross

PRAYER:
Do not give us peace until we have wrestled with you… even if it means an all-nighter? Don’t allow us to become comfortable. Stir the pot. Spiritually we need it… boy, do we need it!

QUOTE:

William M. Batten: When I hear my friends say they hope their children don't have to experience the hardships they went through--I don't agree. Those hardships made us what we are. You can be disadvantaged in many ways, and one way may be not having had to struggle.

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