June 22, 2025 "Keep Wrestling With God"

ReNew Ames Messages

Jacob wrestles with "God." So, did this one back in 2020 - now from a totally different angle. You could say I really "wrestled" with this one this week. A little background: Jacob's a deceiver - his life is a mess. He's on the run because his brother Esau wants to kill him 20 years after he stole the blessing. He finds himself alone on the banks of a stream - it's dark. He can't hide behind his wealth, his servants, or his family. Utterly alone in the dark when he's attacked by a stranger. How many times have you found yourself alone in the dark? Once there, how often have you battled with something you won't recognize as divine until much, much later? People have argued for millennia about what really happened to Jacob. But I don't know if it really matters. It doesn't matter because all the epic battles we face in life are on some level with God and about God. They're about God because of the questions under those battles. Who am I? Does my life matter? Who have I become? Where is God? Who does God want me to be? So they wrestle. All night. This depiction of God isn't something we're used to thinking about. Isn't God supposed to be loving, hospitable, welcoming, inclusive? Apparently not - at least not in the ways we usually define those things. This God is wild and weird and unpredictable. This God wrestles. This is a God who wants to engage - intimately. This is a God we can throw ourselves against with everything we got. Don't know about you, but I need a God who can handle that. They wrestle. Jacob loses and is left with a limp. But he won't let go. Sometimes spirituality is about not letting go of the God who won't let go until something good happens. Then the strangest thing happens. The stranger asks him his name. This is the second time he's been asked this question in life. The first time, by his father. Jacob lies. This time, he gets a do over. He tells the truth. He is Jacob. The deceiver. The liar. The cheat. He is Jacob. Maybe being honest with ourselves is the only way we can begin to heal. Maybe it's only in naming the ugliest parts of ourselves that we can begin to forgive ourselves and experience the transformation God longs to give us. Now, he is named Israel. The one who wrestles with God. That's the blessing. A new name. A new future. To wrestle is to stay close - to remain intimate with - now, we get to wrestle with God as long as we live.