Wrestling

I met an old friend for lunch this week.  We recently re-connected after years and years.  My wife went for the wedding dinner of her friend (I ducked out!) and happened to be seated at the same table as my friend, and somehow the topic of primary schools came up, and it was discovered that the fellow was my classmate in primary 1!

Anyway, I really enjoy meeting this friend of mine, because he is a transparent, frank guy.  He doesn't pretend to be a super holy guy, he doesn't pad his words, and he challenges me with how he openly wrestles with God, and struggles to do the right thing. 

Some people think wrestling and struggling to obey God demonstrates a lack of faith and obedience.  Maybe.  But sadly, I think most of us don't even bother to wrestle with God.  We completely avoid confrontation with God and quietly do our own thing instead!

For men, this is especially when it comes to career decisions and making money.  I've often been tempted to jump at career opportunities without seeking God.  Then there's conduct at work.  Most of us will probably shy away from outright fraud, but when it comes to a white lie, or some ambiguous situation, we'll find a way to peaceably rationalize, while making sure to carefully avoid looking into God's eyes.  And we may even do so while wearing the outward ornaments of being a Christian.

So I really appreciate my friend who makes no pretense with ornaments, and admits his wrestling with God. 

It does not always seem a pleasant thing to us to hear from God, especially when He asks us to do something we don't want to, or when He prunes our character through trials or humbling service.  It gets especially difficult when we look for God to reward us for walking with Him, and then the reward doesn't seem to come.  Career progression, kids doing well, health issues.  Then we ask ourselves, "Did I hear God right?"  and we start to second-guess, and wonder if God is really with us.

But as my friend said, the better question is not "Did I hear God right earlier?" but "Am I obeying God now?".  If we seek God earnestly and obey Him, then He honours that.  He will turn even a bad situation, or a bad decision to good.  While it is absolutely important to hear from God, if things seem to go wrong, just continue seeking Him and obeying Him.  There's little point in agonizing over whether we heard Him right in the first place.  We are where we are.  And He knows what He is doing with our lives, and who He wants to transform us into.  As frustrating and painful as our detours may be, they cannot, and do not upset that. 

So if you're struggling and wrestling with God today, know that it will be OK.  If you're not struggling with God... then check yourself humbly, to see if you've inadvertently walked away from the good fight!

"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace.  In this world you will have trouble.  But take heart!  I have overcome the world." John 16:33

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bullying? Stand up!

Image
When I was a kid, I remember being bullied a fair bit.  I was small for my age, bespectacled, shy.    The teachers didn't help by putting a target on my back by making me Vice Head Prefect.  I would get my stuff just taken away from me by bigger kids, dragged out into the field to be tickled until I collapsed (much less fun than it sounds), and pushed into the storm drains.  Not all the kids were full-blown bullies of course.  But I remember some of them standing by, and politely holding my spectacles (so they wouldn't be broken) while the bullies did their work on me. Most of this stopped when I got to secondary school, where a much larger proportion of my fellow students were now just as nerdy!  And of course I grew up too.  I don't really look back on those days with any kind of animosity, because I think it never occurred to me that it was unusual.  But I do think my experience made me a bit more sympathetic about people around me who...
Read more

Life as a pie chart

Image
Someone told me recently about a "life exercise" in which one compiles all the stuff that makes up your life, and puts it in a pie chart.  So let's say for me, something like this. The idea is to visually demonstrate to myself that, in the event I lose one of these things, then I can see that, hey life is not so bad, that wasn't such a big deal.  Say for example, if I suffered a blown ACL, and couldn't run or play basketball any more, like this: At first blush - I'd say, hey, I still have my wife, children, parents, career, church life - so, chin up, things are not so bad.  Pretty good life visualisation tool to bring some optimism back into play! ... But what if, a month later, something happens at work, and boom, career gets sidetracked, I lose my job, or get put in cold storage somewhere, like this: Oops, now only half my life is left!  With only half of life's meaning left to me, what do I do? And what if something happens to...
Read more

Family AND Team

Image
I heard an interesting viewpoint this weekend. A family is not inherently a team. Hmm.  Sometimes at work, often in church, and most of the time at home, you hear people say to each other that we are family. And often, we really are. We care for each other above and beyond transactional matters.  It matters to me when my colleagues and cell group members (and of course my actual family members) go through illnesses or family issues or work challenges. I root for their success at presentations and projects and relationships. I care about what they care about, even if it has little direct impact on my own life. In a way, a family is sort of an amalgam of people who support each other in pursuit of each member's personal goals. For example, as a father, I support my children in their academic, career and ministry goals. But where they go to school, the grades they get, and the careers and ministries they build - they're really their goals, not mine.  Ditto for my role as a c...
Read more