Taking God to the Mat
A few years ago, I was listening to the car radio and happened on a show at Moody Bible Institute. The interviewer was asking questions of the author of the book Christians Don't Dance with the "Don't" crossed out. The author said, "The book really isn't about dancing at all. In the book I want to say that we Christians have sometimes lied too much. We've made statements and testimonies that have not really happened in our lives. %e have not dared to be honest with one another. Hence, our witness has come through in a rather phony way." I believe that. I think we've got to be honest. That doesn't mean we've got to be pessimistic or cynical, but it does mean that we can really tell what happens in our lives and faith.
When I was a student at North Park, the subject of Jacob's wrestling came up between a colleague and myself. This colleague said, "This thing isn't real to me at all, this idea of wrestling with God." I think he had the idea that God was sovereign. Nobody touched him, What you had to do is surrender and let God have his way.
Believe it or not, I was still struggling when I retired. We went to Florida for a little time and I started having nightmares. One night I was sweating and I woke up and said, "This is the end! This is the end! My soul! Is this what life is all about?" We spent a weekend with a Presbyterian minister in Northern Michigan, who once was a student at North Park. He sent me a book called The Active Life. In that book, I read a quotation from Annie Dillard: 'When you face an adversary, when you face a monster, don't try to climb over but follow that monster down into the depths and you'll find the solid ground of God." I have, my friends.
Unbelievable, shocking in the story of Jacob and God at Jabbok is that this rascal Jacob nailed God to the mat. Devastating theology, how dare you touch a sovereign God? If I preached this in a Calvinist church I'm sure that they would kick me out. Are there any dues to this at all? Then I thought of a book I read by PT. Forsythe in which he talks about prayer. He said, "When we get sick, we say, it's the will of God, but the next thing we do is go get a doctor to counteract the will of God. It may be too soon to submit to the will of God. It may be that you have to deny his will at a lower level to find him on a higher level." That opened up a world of meaning to me. Could it be that we spend a lifetime trying to defend God and whenever a new idea comes, we're shook up because we worry, "%hat's God going to think?" We dare not be human and have a good laugh and a good joke, because we might offend God. %hat kind of a God do we have?
Is it possible that maybe we are just too passive in our faith? It may be that we do need to try in all our wrestling to nail God to the mat. This is what Jacob tried to do. After he discovered that his adversary really was God he forced God to say, "Uncle! Let me go." Jacob said, "I will not let you go until you bless me." As he hung over his strange adversary, I'm sure old Jacob, who had connived a lot of things in his life by little dishonesties that would pass in civil society, realized that what he couldn't get by force was forgiveness — real God-given forgiveness. What he couldn't get was love and real peace. I have a feeling that when he looked down into the face of God, he saw God in his love looking back at him and saying Jacob, "Your struggle is just about over. I forgive you. This time I really bless you."
[Excerpted from the 1996 North Park Homecoming Chapel Sermon.— Ed.]