{"id":348,"date":"2006-04-20T14:39:18","date_gmt":"2006-04-20T22:39:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tgdarkly.com\/blog\/?p=332"},"modified":"2006-04-20T14:39:18","modified_gmt":"2006-04-20T22:39:18","slug":"wrestling-with-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/2006\/04\/20\/wrestling-with-god\/","title":{"rendered":"Wrestling With God"},"content":{"rendered":"

Have you ever wrestled with God? Gen. 32:22-32<\/a> describes the famous incident when Jacob wrestles with God (or with an angel). God (or the angel) appears matter-of-factly in the story: Jacob sends his family and retainers ahead, “[s]o Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak.” (Gen. 32:24.) The “man” “could not overpower” Jacob, but injuries Jacob’s hip with a “touch.” Jacob refuses to let the “man” go until he receives a blessing. The blessing is given, and Jacob’s name is changed to “Israel” “because you have sruggled with God and with men and have overcome.” (Gen. 32:28.) “El” refers to “God,” and the verbal root of “ysr” (“Isra”) apparently refers to “struggle.” After the man leaves, Jacob names the place “Peniel” — meaning “Face of God” — “because I saw God [elohim] face to face, and yet my life was spared.” It seems clear that Jacob realized at some point that this was no ordinary wrestling match.
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\nWhat are we to make of this story? In his excellent NIV Application Commentary<\/a>, John Walton explains this incident as relating to Jacob’s need to submit to God’s authority. The ability to change someone’s name, for example, indicates authority in ancient Near Eastern culture.<\/p>\n

I like this reading, but the story also resonates with me in other ways. Often I feel that I’m wrestling with God to understand Him, His word, and His ways. The problem of theodicy on a global scale, the problem of understanding scripture and Christian theology in light of human and natural history, the problem of personal identity in a given Christian community, the problem of personal infirmities like my little boy’s speech deficits — all of these are points of contact for wrestling with God. I want God to yield and give me answers that are easy for me to digest. Yet He won’t yield; He makes me wrestle.<\/p>\n

I suppose in the wrestling I come to recognize Him, as Jacob recognized, at some point during that long night, that he was tangling with no ordinary “man.” And like Jacob, I don’t leave the contest strong and triumphant. I limp away, broken at the very place God touched me. But I know in the wrestling that I have encountered God.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Have you ever wrestled with God? Gen. 32:22-32 describes the famous incident when Jacob wrestles with God (or with an angel). God (or the angel) appears matter-of-factly in the story: Jacob sends his family and retainers ahead, “[s]o Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak.” (Gen. 32:24.) The “man” “could […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spirituality"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p824rZ-5C","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidopderbeck.com\/tgdarkly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}