Wrestling With God

Are you a wrestler? Or, put another way, have you wrestled with God? Believe it or not, wrestling with God is an important part of spiritual formation. Let me explain. Jacob was a wrestler. In fact, he spent most of his life wrestling with God and trying to control God. No joke: even in the womb, Jacob was wrestling with Esau. The text tells us, “The children struggled together within her” (Gen. 25:22). From there, Jacob wrestled with his father for the birthright that wasn’t his (Gen. 25:29-34) and the blessing that wasn’t his (Gen. 27). He wrestled these away from his brother, Esau, and his brother hated him for it.

Because Rebekah feared for Jacob’s life, she sent him off to her brother Laban. But before he left, his father blessed him and told him to take a wife from one of Laban’s daughters (Gen. 27:41-28:5). Jacob had a dream and encountered God as he journeyed. After the encounter, Jacob wrestled again with God by bargaining with Him (he made a vow). Trying to control his outcome, Jacob told God that IF He would bless him, THEN he would make Him his God. Again, he wrestled for control of his life with God. He said to God, “You’ll be my God if you bless me” (Gen. 28:20-22).

He made his way to Laban’s home, and there, he wrestled with Laban for years. He wrestled with Laban for Rachel’s hand in marriage (having to give a total of fourteen years of service – seven for Leah [whom he didn’t want] and an additional seven years for Rachel [whom he wanted, Gen. 29:1-30]). After he got what he wanted, his wives wrestled with each other for his love and affection. They did this by giving him children (Gen. 30:1-24). Jacob again wrestled with Laban for prosperity and gained great flocks, which made him a wealthy man (Gen. 30:25-43). 

God, the One he made a vow to, then told Jacob to go home. But to go home, Jacob had to wrestle his family away from Laban by fleeing from him and then having a confrontation with Laban before he let them go (Gen. 31). From there, Jacob continued his journey home but feared Esau. Fearing that Esau will attack and kill him and his family, he split the family into two camps. If Esau attacked the first camp, the second one could escape. After he split the family up, he THEN prayed to God and asked Him for deliverance. While splitting his family into two camps seems understandable from a human perspective, it reflected Jacob’s inability to trust God fully. He controlled the situation (wrestling with God) by creating two camps, but then he asked for God’s help (Gen. 32:1-21).

Then came Jacob’s most famous wrestling match (Gen. 32:24-30). Jacob had been wrestling with God and people all his life. He was on his way home and feared Esau’s retaliation. He was anxious and attempted to control the outcome of the situation by splitting up his family, sending messengers and gifts ahead of them to his brother, and lining up his family in order of importance to him (the servants and their children, then Leah and her children, then Rachel and Joseph, but Jacob went first). The night before he encountered his brother, he sent everyone ahead of him across the river but stayed back alone. There, Jacob met a man.

Jacob wrestled with the man (whom he came to see as God in human form––a foreshadowing of Jesus coming in human form). Jacob “overpowered” God (kinda like a dad who lets his children win in wrestling), but God took Jacob’s hip out of its socket. Injured, Jacob would still not let go of God unless He blessed him (“I will not let you go unless you bless me.”). God blessed Jacob and renamed him Israel, which means “to strive [wrestle] with God” (see also Hos. 12:3-4). God recognized that Jacob had wrestled all his life and had never given up. So, God blessed him, and Jacob recognized God’s deliverance and called the place Peniel (“For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered.”). He saw that in all his wrestling, God was always with him.

The next day, Jacob went before all his family, limping to meet his brother. Instead of wrestling, Jacob surrendered. He walked before his family, laid bare to whatever Esau did to him. He made himself vulnerable and relinquished control to God. When Esau saw him, he ran to meet him, embraced him, and fell on his neck to kiss him. Together, the two wept in each other’s arms. Instead of meeting retaliation, Jacob met reconciliation. Instead of the grave, Jacob encountered grace. Esau told Jacob that he didn’t need all the gifts, but Jacob insisted that he take the gifts, and he told his brother, “For I have seen your face, which is like seeing the face of God, and you have accepted me. Please accept my blessing that is brought to you, because God has dealt graciously with me, and because I have enough” (Gen. 33:10-11).

Jacob received forgiveness and grace, and it was overwhelming. Out of the overflow of grace, Jacob wanted to give to Esau as well. He had been so richly blessed, and he had enough—not because he had worldly riches but because of godly redemption. In that moment, Jacob connected his earlier encounter with God to his meeting with Esau. Like God, Esau demonstrated love and forgiveness to Jacob. These moments changed Jacob from the inside out. He was transformed. Although he would continue to wrestle with life, he did so from a different place, not one of control and anxiousness but of surrender and rest. 

You see, wrestling with God is not all bad. When we wrestle with God, we are intimately connected to Him. We couldn’t be closer. Our wrestling with God starts from a place of anxiousness and a need to control. But the more we wrestle with God, the more we recognize His constant presence. Our perspective changes, and we realize that it is not that God is fighting with us, but we are fighting with God. When this begins to sink in, we move from having a tight grip on God (trying to manipulate His blessings) to allowing God to have a tight grip on us (in which we see each breath we take as a blessing). God is waiting for us to stop wrestling with Him for control through our anxiousness. Instead, He longs for us to return and surrender to Him (to let go and let Him take hold), and then we find rest. He deeply desires to be gracious to us. When we begin to surrender, we find rest for our souls.