I was flipping through the Bible trying to decide what to read. The thing was so big, how could I possibly decide? How could I know what was important? What if God had a message for me and I missed it because I was reading the wrong section? Then something caught my eye, big and bold: Jacob wrestled with God. It was an old Genesis story that I hadn’t understood when we were assigned it for class. I didn’t know what wrestling with God meant in the context of Jacob—I'd actually thought it was weird—but something clicked in me. I asked myself, “Am I wrestling with God?” The answer was simple: Yes. Of course I was; it seemed more natural for me to be angry at or confused with God than be at peace with Him. I’d go through a range of emotions that would typically end with exhaustion until I inevitably started the cycle again:
INDIFFERENT SERVITUDE
The cycle started with an attitude of detachment where my relationship with God was joyless and stale, a kind of business arrangement. I would tell God, “I do what You say, I believe in You, and You don’t send me to Hell. Agreed?” There are no ‘deals’ with God as I know now, but in the past, feeling too small to make a deal with the Almighty spurred me to resent Him for what I felt was His detachment.
RAGING BITTERNESS
“Nothing is about me,” I thought. “Not when it comes to You; nothing is mine. Everything belongs to You: my accomplishments, my talents, my breathing, my pain. What I want doesn’t matter. You get to control every aspect of my life. I can never be happy without you. I can never do anything without You. You’re my ball and chain, the monkey on my back, my oppressive, tyrannical master!” I blamed God for not meeting me on my terms, and before knowing better, had no qualms about letting Him in on my tangent.
PARALYZING FEAR
God was like a void to me, an all-consuming vacuum that would swallow me whole without a trace of me left. I would have no identity. I would become part of the faceless, nameless whole of Christian followers who in my irrational mind of the past were the ‘Jesus freaks.’ Serving God to me was like choosing between two kinds of torture: It sucked being with Him because He would ask me to do hard things, give up things I loved, and it sucked being without Him because I’d experienced His calming peace before, and it was something I craved again. Yet I was convinced that to get that feeling, that security, He’d order me around and put me through hell in the name of love. And I was a coward.
DEPRESSING GUILT
“Oh, God…I’m sorry.” I’d say it until the words blurred together. I desperately wanted to believe that God had a good reason for everything He did. I wanted to understand Him, but it seemed that with every step forward, another roadblock whether internal or external, would send me three steps back. “Oh, God…I’m sorry.” I'd say it until the knot in my stomach untangled. “All those horrible things I said to You, all those awful thoughts I thought about You…oh God, I’m sorry…I’m sorry…I’m sorry…”
THE EUPHORIA
Something good just happened. A mysterious save, uninterrupted luck, one-millionth-task completion, profound spiritual discovery—just a good day. He gets all the praise. Fairies sing, the moon is cheese, unicorns exist, and I love God. He is the Alpha, the Almighty, the Great I Am, my Savior, my Lord.
While aloofness would typically start the cycle, there was no telling where it would end or how many times it'd have a full run. Some stages lasted minutes, others days. Thankfully, while not completely gone, the cycle has taken a break from its exhausting turn as I’ve allowed myself to love God more than hate and fear Him and Jacob spoke to me. I got to the part when God told Jacob to let Him go and Jacob refused—“No. Not until you bless me,” he said— and I realized all those times I thought I’d walked away from God…did I? Or was I like Jacob: struggling, frustrated, ready to give up, and yet when He asks me to let go, I refuse? I was bound to God. Even as I kicked and screamed, gave in to my darkest impulses, took a break to cool my head, I never left Him. I never let Him go. He touches me at my weakest point. He breaks me, and I remember why I’m hanging on so tight, even in the face of my guilt, anger, fear, indifference and happiness: because I need Him. Quit? Let go? No…I have far too many questions, way too much anxiety to face the world on my own. I won’t let go until he blesses me. Thank you, Jacob.
