GRRRRRRRRRROWL

I have moments where I want to just throw things in frustration. I hesitate to say the word anger because that word has implications that my self-control fruit is less than developed and certainly a week or two short of ripeness... but I guess the fruit never lies.

You know the story where Jacob wrestles with the angel and gets his hip broken and ends up limping for the rest of his life? I wonder what was going on in his brain during the wrestling match? I wonder if there was a moment when he didn't think he was going to make it. I wonder how it started. Did the angel just walk up, tap him on the shoulder, and sucker punch him? Was it a giant bear hug tackle from behind?

What about the time when Joshua was standing outside the Jericho walls and this fearsome guy comes and stands by him. Joshua freaks out because the guy is obviously intimidating and scary, probably 6'5" about 260, wearing the full battle gear with a scowl on his face. Joshua's the one with the faith right? He and his partner Caleb brought back the grapes on a staff 40 years earlier and told the whole tribe of Israel that they could take the land. Then all of a sudden here's this guy who might make him reconsider. Joshua asks the question... "tell me sir, are you with us or are you with them?"

I hate it that I'm not able to reconcile in my brain that the guy I'm wrestling with carries a blessing, or the scary dude standing over my shoulder is really an angel in the army of the God that I'm trying to follow. It bothers me that I don't recognize the places and the ways that He shows up. It bothers me that sometimes all I want is a blessing and instead I get a wrestling match. When I feel like I'm doing the thing that God wants me to do, the only people I seem to see are the dudes whose armor is thicker than mine, whose muscles are more well developed than mine, and whose glare is more convincing than mine.

I have this sense that the Kingdom of God is supposed to be the most powerful force on the planet, but my own flesh and bawdy desires regularly wrestle it to the ground and pin it for a 3 count. The disciples wanted Jesus to restore the Kingdom of Israel. They wanted him to set up a literal throne in a literal place with the help of literal angels. They wanted a show of power, force, might. They wanted demonstration. They got Christ, and Him crucified. I don't know how to talk about that. I don't know how to make that the guiding principle in my life. I don't know how to find comfort in a God who wrestles with His chosen ones, leaving them limping.

Joshua didn't recognize God at Jericho, but the walls still fell. When Jacob woke up after his stairway dream, he said, "Surely the Lord was in this place and I didn't know it." Atleast I'm not the only one. Sometimes it feels like a party game to find God in all the cute little places in the world. Sometimes I just have to admit that I just don't recognize the landscape.

Part of me looks at these times and finds frustration that God doesn't work in the formulaic ways that I want Him too. That would be an easier list to keep, and an easier way for me to trudge forward on my own. The other part of me has the heartfelt conviction that I don't want a God who always meets my expectations. I don't want to be God, because I could never surprise me in the ways that He does. I could never find endless ways to turn wrestling matches into blessings, and holy fear into a Kingdom conquest. Perhaps it time that I take my messiah fantasies to the cross and just listen. That would be a nice change of pace.