Daniel – Big Circumstance

The London International Invitational Wrestling event took place from 10-11 December 2011. Wrestling 166 on Flickr by Greg Cullen. CC 2.0.

I was sharing at Midhurst on Easter Day about how one of my ministerial student friends in Manchester invited me and others to go with him to watch bouts of professional wrestling. I never understood the fascination and never accepted his invitations.

Why? For me, wrestling was irredeemably camp, and that’s not me. I associated it with my grandmother watching the Saturday afternoon wrestling on World Of Sport with Dickie Davies from 4 pm every week. As she cheered and booed the likes of Mick McManus and Jackie Pallo, I couldn’t wait for it to end so that we could get the football results.

Wrestling was unwelcome for me, and the first thing I want to say about this story is that Jacob’s overnight wrestling with the mysterious man was also unwelcome.

Life is challenging enough for Jacob at this point in his life. He is heading for this first meeting with his brother Esau in years. Esau, you remember, is the twin whom he tricked out of his blessing from their father Isaac. How will Esau receive him? Will he want revenge? Jacob has already prepared to soften the blow by arranging for members of his family and household to go ahead of him, along with gifts for his brother.

The mysterious man in some way represents God, given that at the end Jacob says he has seen God and lived (verse 30). What we read about here is an unwelcome wrestling bout with God, whether that was directly with God or with his representative.

It is not too much of a jump to recognise the seasons in our own lives when we find ourselves wrestling with God, and that the experience is equally unwelcome for us. We believe God is in charge of our lives, but events happen that we do not want. Ill health. A job loss. Estrangement from family members or friends. A death. We all too easily expect life to resemble a Hallmark greetings card or the cover of a box of chocolates, only for major incidents to throw us off course.

And when they do, it is not unusual for us to end up complaining to the God who has allowed these things. As Jacob might have wondered why he had to face Esau with no certainty of a good outcome, so do we remonstrate with God for our circumstances. Very few of us accept the undesirable circumstances placidly. We are wrestling with God, although it feels like God has come to wrestle with us.

We were never promised the easy life we long for. Jesus said, ‘In the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.’ He would then go to the Cross.

A little girl once asked her mother, ‘Mummy, do all fairy stories end with the words, ‘And they lived happily ever after’?’

‘No,’ replied Mum, ‘Some end with, ‘When I became a Christian, all my troubles disappeared.’’

I wish it were different. But God has not opted for a way of working where he routinely presses a button and we fly away from danger in our ejector seat. Instead, he has chosen a path that takes us through unwelcome situations to lead us into greater depth, for our sake, for the sake of others, and even for his glory. That is, after all, what Jesus did through the Cross.

To that end, he has given us resources to help us. We have the Book of Job to read. We have those Psalms that we call ‘The Psalms of Lament’, in which the psalmists eloquently and passionately bring their pain to God. They give us permission to say exactly what we think. As the early church father Athanasius said, ‘Most of the Bible speaks to us, but the Psalms speak for us.’

When we find ourselves caught up in an unwelcome bout of wrestling with God, let us pray that he will do a deep work in us and through us as he accompanies us through this time we would have preferred not to have happened.

Secondly, wrestling with God teaches us trust.

Diverse people stacking hands together at PxHere. Public Domain.

That may sound unlikely at first: why would you grow in trust in this One with whom you have wrestled and complained? But listen to the text in verse 25:

When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him.

When sunrise comes, Jacob will limp past Penuel (verse 31). This is Jacob, the fixer, the manipulator, the one who has sought to control his own destiny and the lives of others. Mister Independent now has a limp.

Will he now at last realise that he cannot be in total control of his lot? This is the time for Jacob truly to be a man of faith, rather than one who deceives in order to get his own way.

Faith is about both belief and trust. Believing certain things to be true about God, the world, and us. And trust in the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Jacob’s challenge here is to embrace the ‘trust’ part of faith. A man who limps is at a serious disadvantage as he prepares to meet the brother he so sorely wronged all those years earlier. He has already tried to butter up his brother by planning to send his family members, servants, and herds ahead of him – but what if they don’t impress Esau? What if all that is left is for him to face Esau with a limp? How can the man who even wrestled for hours with God’s own representative have a chance? There is nothing left but to trust.

And when we wrestle with. God over those unwelcome intruders into our lives, be they health, relationships, work, finance, of any other major aspect of our existence, there is nothing left but to trust in God.

It’s what the Apostle Paul did with his ‘thorn in the flesh’, whatever that was. It’s what Jesus did when the Father would not remove the cup of suffering from him.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t ask God to remove trials from our lives. After all, we shall pray in the Lord’s Prayer in a few minutes’ time, ‘Save us from the time of trial.’ But there are occasions where he does his deep work when we are in the furnace before deliverance comes.

I have spoken before about examples of this in my own life. The lung surgery I had in my twenties that gave me an experience of what it is like to go through major surgery. My encounters with depression. Playing my part in caring for my father through his Alzheimer’s Disease. I would happily never have had any of those experiences. But by letting me go through these, God has given me things whereby I can support people.

The mistake would have been to listen to the lies some Christians tell about these experiences. ‘If you haven’t been healed, then you don’t have enough faith.’ ‘If you suffer from depression, then you must have committed a sin.’ For to believe those lies stops us from trusting our Father in the darkness.

God invites us to trust him as we limp along after wrestling with him. He is the One who works all things together for good for those who love him. If we are struggling right now, let us take courage to trust him.

Thirdly and finally, wrestling with God leads to blessing.

A figurine of a man holding a child at Picryl. Public Domain.

This may be the opposite of what many Christians expect. We have just spoken about trust, and many of us have gained the idea that Christian trust is something simple and serene. Struggle doesn’t enter into it: that would be the opposite of trust. We ‘let go and let God.’

Now there are Christians who seem to have a gift for such trust. But many of us do not. And we are not necessarily inferior in God’s eyes because of that. Listen again to Jacob and his mystery divine assailant:

²⁵ When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. ²⁶ Then he said, ‘Let me go, for the day is breaking.’ But Jacob said, ‘I will not let you go, unless you bless me.’ ²⁷ So he said to him, ‘What is your name?’ And he said, ‘Jacob.’ ²⁸ Then the man said, ‘You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.’

You might think Jacob’s request for a blessing is another example of him trying get something out of the other party at their expense. And we don’t know all his motives. But whether or not his motives are pure, the divine messenger does indeed bless him. He gives him a new name:

‘You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.’

What Jacob has done here is honoured with a blessing. God approves of his wrestling to the point of prevailing.

Yes! God invites the struggle, and ultimately, he blesses it.

If you are wrestling with God about something, I want to encourage you to continue to do so. Be persistent. Persevere. You will prevail if you do. And you will discover blessing, perhaps of a style or magnitude you never considered.

This may not only be to do with the areas of life we have already pondered where we wrestle with God over adverse circumstances in our lives. One area where it is important that Christians wrestle with God is in prayer, and especially in intercession.

There are examples in Scripture and church history of people who have done this. The prophet Daniel confessed and interceded on behalf of God’s people in respect to their sins that had led them to exile in Babylon. He was eventually granted remarkable visions of God’s will, not just for his own people, but for the nations.

In World War Two, a group of people at the Bible College of Wales gathered to pray against the advances of Hitler and the Axis forces. They believed that if they succeeded, the spread of the Gospel would be hindered. Day after day and night after night they prayed, led by a man called Rees Howells.

I have been in the company of people I would call ‘prayer warriors’, and to listen to them struggle with God over issues of social injustice and personal pain was like listening to women in labour. But they persisted, and God blessed their wrestling in prayer.

When we wrestle with God, let us resist the temptation to dismiss it as unwelcome and seek an easy life. Let us trust God even in the wrestling, and let us persist until his blessing comes.

I haven’t really done any sabbatical work today. Friday is usually my day off, and I’ve kept it much like that. I think it’s good to keep the rhythm. So after taking the children to school, I stayed on, because on Friday mornings I do twenty minutes’ reading with a group of Year 1 children.

Late morning, Debbie and I headed into town. We needed some more bargain school uniform for the monkeys and struck gold at Marks and Spencer. Yes, really. Then we continued our recent habit of having a cheap lunch out together. Yates’s Wine Lodge (why do they put that extra ‘s’ after the apostrophe?) had a two-for-£7.95 deal, and it was good for the price. The downside was the company at the next table. Two young women with a pre-school boy. One was his mother, poor lad. All sorts of unsavoury conversation that youngsters shouldn’t hear. Debbie swears one of them got him to drink a mouthful of her shot. Some kids don’t have a chance.

Meanwhile, I have been following all week the case of Caroline Petrie, the Christian nurse who was suspended for offering to pray with a patient. She offered prayer, the patient declined, Mrs Petrie did not pray. The patient was not offended, but told someone else she thought it was strange. Next thing, Mrs Petrie is under investigation. She has previously been disciplined for offering prayer cards. The Daily Mail reported this on Monday,as did the Daily Telegraph. On Tuesday, the Mail reported support for her case from the Royal College of Nursing and the Christian Medical Fellowship. Today, the Mail reports her reinstatement, but – along with the Telegraph – also quotes a further potentially sinister development. The Department of Health published a document last month in which it warned that doctors or nurses who attempted to preach to patients or other staff would be treated as having committed harassment or intimidation under disciplinary procedures.

Furthermore, I have received a press release today from the Evangelical Alliance in which Hazel Blears, the Government’s Communities Secretary, told faith groups that if they accept money from the state, they must not use it to proselytise. They may speak about their faith if spoken to, she says, but clearly taking the initiative to mention it would be forbidden under a forthcoming ‘charter of excellence’. She then says she doesn’t want to strip away the very reason why faith groups show compassion! The Alliance’s Director of Public Policy, R David Muir, responded:

“The Government wants the social action and welfare that faith groups provide, but there is a danger that they also want faith groups to leave their beliefs at the door.

“Our faith is what equips us as Christians to provide support and compassion to those who are spiritually and emotionally damaged by debt.

“But we are glad that the Government recognises how integral our faith is to the services we provide, and is open to discussion on this critical issue. We look forward to working with them.”

All round, then, seem to be threats against Christians making the first move in sharing their faith and using it to offer comfort and hope to people. Here are a few random reflections:

1. None of this should surprise us. Whatever the faith of Blair first and now Brown, the Labour Party runs these days on a fundamentally secular humanist creed. Let’s here none of that ‘the Labour Party owes more to Methodism than Marxism’ mantra. It may have been true in the past. It isn’t today. Christians should expect such opposition.

2. Nevertheless, none of that should stop us crying ‘foul’. All these cases are about discrimination against the freedom of religion the Government supposedly signed up to when it ratified the European Convention on Human Rights. And while part of me is wary of the secular philosophies behind that document, the Government clearly doesn’t want to accept that sauce for the goose is a tasty accompaniment for the gander as well.

3. We also need to reflect upon ourselves. How much of this might we have brought upon ourselves through insensitive ‘witnessing’? Please note, I’m not saying Mrs Petrie was. I don’t know her, and the fact that she didn’t press on with a prayer for her elderly patient when the offer was declined suggests that while she is upfront with her faith, she is probably not the aggressive sort. Nevertheless, most of us know Christians whose demeanour in faith-sharing makes us cringe, let alone what the non-Christians feel.

4. However, an attempt to prevent us from taking the initiative is effectively a tactic to shut us up. I believe we have to earn the right to speak by loving, holy, just action, but that does not mean we cannot speak first or simultaneously as well.

5. The ‘public money’ argument is specious. It’s not Government money, it’s taxpayers’ money. And while we elect officials to use it, they are stewards, not owners. Do they think Christians should not pay their taxes? This kind of argument amounts to an attempt to strip us of our democratic voice.

6. There is a huge case of historical amnesia here. As today’s Mail article rightly points out, many of our hospitals were explicitly Christian foundations in their origin. In the church we would want to say more than that, in crediting the rise of the infirmaries and more recently the hospices to Christian vision. So to tell a nurse her faith must come second forgets the origin of much health care in this country.

7. Furthermore, no Christian can put her faith second. I am fond of telling the story of an elderly Local Preacher from my home circuit. He was interviewed for the post of Secretary to the local Co-Operative Society. “Where will you put the Co-Op in your loyalties?” the panel asked him. “Second,” he replied, “to the church of Jesus Christ.” I don’t think he meant that all his time would be spent at church, I think he meant that his faith would determine his life. He got the job, and did it well.

8. Nevertheless, putting our faith second puts us under suspicion in society. There is huge historical precedent for this. It’s what Daniel did, praying towards Jerusalem while serving faithfully in Babylon. It’s the centuries-long suspicion of Catholic loyalty to the Vatican. In the name of what is currently calle ‘community cohesion’, authorities call people together to a common loyalty that is effectively a secular creed. Hence other phenomena in our society today, such as the opposition to faith schools, or the legislation that has made it increasingly difficult to have organisations that are exclusively staffed by Christians. Do we cave in? The biblical answer seems to me to be ‘no’. However, that means accepting the consequences. We’re not remotely near the situation Christians found themselves in when communism ruled eastern Europe, but there it was well known that people of faith would not get on well with their careers and would suffer economically for their beliefs. Might we be seeing the thinnest end of that wedge here, or is that alarmist?

I think that’s enough from me. What are your thoughts?

Tag: Daniel

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