Wrestling With God
When Purpose Feels Like a Fight
In Genesis 32:24-30, we read about Jacob wrestling with a man all night. They wrestled for so long that the man needed to leave, yet Jacob refused to let go. The man touched Jacob’s hip, and it popped out of its joint. Jacob still refused to let him go, demanding a blessing first. The man turned out to be God Himself, and He did indeed bless him.
As I recount the story, I’m smiling to myself because I’ve found myself wrestling with God lately, too. However, it’s not because I want a blessing from Him. It sounds silly to admit, but I have been refusing a blessing… Possibly even for years!
What kind of person would refuse a blessing?!
Apparently me. I’m that person! But I don’t think I’ve done it intentionally.
While Jacob wrestled by a river, I wrestled in my own head in the living room, in the classroom as a student, and even at work on the ambulance. That’s to name only a few places. Wrestling for me was choosing what I thought was purposeful instead of selecting the purpose God was calling me to.
Researching tornadoes to improve safety and understanding was purposeful—but it wasn’t my purpose. (It was a childhood dream!)
While serving my community by helping the sick and/or injured as a paramedic is a purposeful career, it wasn’t mine.
I was a paramedic for a season, but even in those moments, God was putting me in positions where my calling was evident—the calling to teach. I found joy in teaching Sunday School, continuing education for our service, and even an Emergency Medical Responder (EMR) class for our community college.
Well, that doesn’t sound much like wrestling to me…
Let me put it this way: My career, or my purpose, during that time was to be a paramedic. Not a teacher. I may have enjoyed it, but I denied in my head that it would ever be my purpose.
“Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.”
-Proverbs 19:21, NIV
God has a funny way of working, though. When my husband joined the Air Force, we moved. I left the EMS field, and I struggled with what to do next with his new work schedule and the possibility of moving every few years. The thought of teaching kept popping up in my mind, but I denied it. Over and over again.
Yet, the nudges have always been there.
I find myself loving to see the light on my kids’ faces when they understand new concepts while I homeschool them. It’s similar to how I felt when I taught the EMR class.
Preparing for co-op each week by designing curriculum and engaging with the kids on a purposeful level brings so much joy. I loved doing this when I prepared continuing education classes for adults.
Showing up on Sundays to help teach children’s church is something I look forward to each week.
My joy is sprinkled throughout each of those moments.
So, one day here in the past weeks, I finally said out loud, “Fine, God. If You want me to teach, I’ll teach!”
I don’t know how many people talk to God that way, but I wasn’t frustrated with Him. I was simply tired of wrestling. Tired of chasing my own understanding. I was ready to chase after His.
I might even be so bold as to say I’m excited! Yes. I’m excited to dive into my purpose, which has always been there, and to accept the blessings that come with surrendering what I thought would bring me joy to what actually does.
Is this forever or a season? Only He knows. Fighting the fact that I enjoy this part of my life, though, is over.
He took into account all the time I’d wrestled with Him. He took into account my own stubbornness in thinking I know best. He took into account the fact that I would have to change my desire to prove something to myself, and flip that into the desire for His will.
Our God is patient, kind, and willing to give. He’s a good and loving Father. He wants what’s best for us. He wants to bless us. Why is it we can bless others, but it’s so hard to let God bless us Himself?
That may be a topic for another post on a different day. Today, I’m surrendering my purpose to God’s and accepting the blessings that come with it.
Will you?
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.”
-Jeremiah 29:11, NIV
Reflection
Sometimes our biggest blessing is waiting quietly behind the thing we’ve been resisting most.
What self-driven purpose may be robbing you of blessings that come with God’s purpose?
Are you able to look back and find something in life that’s brought you joy, but maybe you didn’t fully acknowledge it?
Are you willing to surrender your own ideas of what a purposeful life looks like for His?