Wrestling

There are times that I find myself wrestling with God.

I'm not really much given to melancholy or depression, but there are times I find myself... frustrated.  Not so much down or "blue", but more feeling as though life just hasn't happened the way that I thought it should have.  And, of course, life should always happen just as I think it should.  My preferences are, quite obviously, the highest good, which is why I operate best as my own lord.  Oh, wait...

Because I recognize the Lordship of Jesus, but I also long for things to go the way that I think they should, there are times I'm stuck in the wrestling.  I wrestle to see God's good in the midst of my frustration.  I wrestle to see the extremely cloudy "big picture" when I'm much more captured by the broken pieces I feel like I can see very clearly.  I wrestle with fears, identity, direction, longings... I wrestle with myself, I suppose, even as I wrestle with the God Who is leading me.

But here's the thing I've come upon this Advent season: it's only because God has come near that I wrestle.

It's not necessary for me to wrestle with a distant, transcendent deity who is removed from my everyday life--there's no purpose in it.  If Jesus doesn't understand and purpose my day to day and moment to moment, then I don't need to wrestle with Him in my day to day and moment to moment.  If God remains far off, I can safely do as I please.  In that instance, I might wrestle with disappointment with myself, frustration at a situation, anger at others, or apathy about the future, but I certainly wouldn't be wrestling with God.  I would look inward for a better version of myself--to find the strength that Nietzsche said was within me.  I would seek to orchestrate the details of my life; to control, to manipulate, to organize, but certainly never to surrender.  If God hadn't come near, I would often turn inward, but I would have no need to turn upward.

But God has come near.  In Jesus, God became a baby.  Who grew into a child.  Who learned by trial and error, who was taught obedience, who was tempted in every way, who grew into a man.  A Man, who, at least at one moment in time, on a dark night in a garden, wrestled with God as well.  A Man who was obedient to death, even death on a cross.  A Man who was raised by God, first from the grave, and then to heavens.  A Man who intercedes for me moment by moment, and is involved in the intimate details of my life. Which, of course, is why I wrestle.

So, when I wrestle with God, I'm learning to be thankful that I can.  It's hard sometimes.

But I know He's good.