Wrestling with God…
I couldn’t understand what was happening.
None of it made sense.
It doesn’t happen this way.
Yet there I was, in less than six months my ability to conceive was stripped from me.
My tubes ruptured my womb empty, my heart grieving, my babies lost.
I had so many questions that didn’t have answers, at least not on this side of eternity.
I had to choose. I had to decide if I would cling to God despite the fact that He could have intervened, that He could have made my babies implant in the right place, He could have kept my tubes from rupturing. I had to choose to believe that either God was good and faithful all the time or He was bad and unfaithful.
So I chose. I chose to cling to my omnipotent, amazingly loving God. Oh, but I didn’t only cling. I wrestled. I brought to God my questions, my pain, my barren body. I asked why. I wrestled over how unfair it was that children were given to mothers and fathers who didn’t care or wouldn’t care or would abuse them. I wrestled with Him over whether fertility treatments were right for our family or not. I clung to Him as I begged for a miracle in my body.
In the wrestling, in the clinging I discovered something. When I wrestled with Him, I was close enough to hear Him speak. He spoke words of comfort, He spoke words of direction, He spoke words of healing. That healing often involved painful cleansings and death to myself, my desires, my way. Oh, but God is bigger than my doubts, bigger than my questions, bigger than my inability to conceive naturally. In the wrestling I grew closer to Him. In the wrestling God blessed me. In the wrestling I have been forever changed.
Are you facing a difficult time in your life? Have you decided to cling to God? If not what are you waiting for?
Are you wrestling with God? As you wrestle are you listening to Him? What is He telling you?
Consider reading Daniel 3:16-18 (Shadrach Meshach and Abednego had to choose whether to cling to God or not. Read their choice).
Then read Genesis 32:22-32 (Jacob wrestles with God and clings to Him until God blesses Him, but he walks away changed forever).
How do these passages shape your ideas of clinging to God and wrestling with Him?
I can’t wait to hear what you think.
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I recently re-read my favorite chapter of the Bible, Daniel, Chapter 2 (If you think about it, you’ll know why it’s my favorite chapter).
Plenty of people could interpret the king’s dream, but no one could tell him what he dreamed. Daniel understood that he couldn’t tell the king what he dreamed either, but he knew the LORD could. So he prayed with his friends and received the words from the LORD that allowed him to tell and interpret the king’s dream.
That’s where I am at my life. The LORD has told me a list of things that I’m going to do this year, and I have no clue how exactly I’m going to get them done. But I know the LORD can do what seems impossible to him, so it’s about time I trust him and do my best and let Him take care of the rest.
So Daniel, you cling to God while you wait for Him to work it all out in your life. Despite the questions and not knowing. Thanks for sharing!
Our God is a consuming fire…”refiner’s fire my heart’s one desire is to be holy set apart for you Lord”, The firey trials of life are the means by which our Lord conforms us into his image, The three Hebrew children had a choice…”You either bow or you burn!”. God is faithful to bring us through the fire, and what’s more, He goes through it with us. Remember the fourth man in the firey furnace? Yes, we struggle and no, we don’t understand, but God always KNOWS the eternal purposes of the purification process. God gave his only son because He so loved the world…the loss of a child makes us grasp the depth of His love like nothing else.
Yes, God is faithful and He can use you to encourage others.
Thank you Jan for sharing your thoughts and for encouraging me. I know that God is using you too!