PM: July 31, 2019
Fun fact for the night: When he was younger, Abraham Lincoln was a crazy good wrestler–he was champion of his county and supposedly only lost one match out of 300. According to legend he also was a trash-talker:
The rugged frontiersman once beat a man with a single toss and challenged the mob that had gathered with a shout: “Any of you want to try it, come on and whet your horns!”
SI.com
There was a person in the Bible who wrestled with God, Jacob, as he was coming back to face Esau (who Jacob had tricked out of his inheritance).
4 Jacob was left alone, and a man came and wrestled with him. The man fought with him until the sun came up. 25 When the man saw that he could not defeat Jacob, he touched Jacob’s leg and put it out of joint.
Genesis 32:24-29 (ERV)
26 Then the man said to Jacob, “Let me go. The sun is coming up.”
But Jacob said, “I will not let you go. You must bless me.”
27 And the man said to him, “What is your name?”
And Jacob said, “My name is Jacob.”
28 Then the man said, “Your name will not be Jacob. Your name will now be Israel.[a] I give you this name because you have fought with God and with men, and you have won.”
It’s okay to wrestle with God–it just means that sometimes you question what God lets happen, you don’t understand God or Christianity 100%–it’s okay to not feel 100% sure of God. It never means you’re not a Christian and it never means God will leave you. Sometimes you wrestle with things, and afterwards you get peace or wisdom. Read the whole story of Jacob sometime and see how it ends.
Dear Lord, Thank you for being a big God, big enough to handle our questions and wrestling with things. Amen.
