Wrestling with God

Aug 13, 2010, 12.00am IST
Janina Gomes.

Before we seek God, it is He who has already sought us.

Jacob, in the Bible, wrestled with God in his dream, whilst asleep under a tree. His experience is really a universal one, though it may manifest in many different forms.


Wrestling with God always and inevitably has a positive outcome. We become freer from within. We begin to see a meaning in conflicts and confrontation. When up against a wall, be sure God will meet us in the very impasse we are in. He confronts us, not in the inhuman way some people do, but with deference to our independence and respect for our deepest longings and desires.

Confrontation in real life is unavoidable. Confrontation if handled badly can lead to conflict. Conflict arises from difference and the inability of people to integrate this diversity. Conflict hampers full development because very often it is rooted in the past as unfinished business. A history of non-acceptance, of claims and counterclaims, of greed, jealousy, of disrupted social interactions, sometimes ending in violence and war can all make conflicts difficult to resolve and lead to an emotional overload.


Generations of people pass on the same hatreds from the past. They have been and continue to be at loggerheads. Acrimony and bad taste, attacks and counter-attacks. We are familiar with it all. On the other hand negotiated settlements require wisdom, detachment, statesmanship, a certain give and take, exploration of the unfamiliar and breaking of new ground.

In every situation that presents itself, we find that we encounter some powerful force that we cannot explain. The process of avoidance, denial and withdrawal are all ways in which we wrestle with the divine.

In our active consciousness, we question, look for firm answers and delay our responses. God extends a hand of invitation to us, best captured in Michael Angelo's painting on creation, in the Sistine chapel, depicting God the Father reaching out a hand to touch a human being to life.

Often we find in life, we want one thing and just another happens. All the best laid plans of mice and men come to naught. That creates a feeling of defeat and despondency. But, all the while, the shadow of God hovers and has been hovering over us in all situations both good and bad. A long extended period of wrestling with God's ways and His plans may finally lead us to accept that with God, what we must really do as created beings is to surrender our whole life to Him.

Once we have this framework in our lives, the rest becomes easier. Don't wait till the evening of your life to come to terms with yourself and God. If you are resisting and are enmeshed in the day-to-day pettiness that can ruin our lives, begin now. God, the very force you were wrestling with has already found you before you actively sought Him.

If we allow the grace of God to flow unimpeded in us, we will find that goodness flows naturally from us, like the river. Others will find refuge and solace in us and we will become messengers of God without great effort.

Time will be on our side. Nature will support and help us. We will walk confidently into the future. The God we evaded will flood our lives with His grace. And after a while we will find that there is no need to wrestle any more. God will be our all in all. Was that not the reason why we were born?