It's Ok to Struggle

By a raise of hands, how many of you like to struggle? How many of you like to have difficult situations in your life? I don’t think this is something that we typically look for in our lives and look forward to in our daily routines. When we struggle we typically have to make a difficult or a series of difficult decisions and then we have to stand by those decisions that we make. Then we have the rest of our lives to look back at those decisions and pick them apart and wonder if they were the right decisions that we made.

Did I go to the right college? Did I pick the right job or career or vocation for my life? Was buying this new car a good decision financially? Was moving across the country away from friends and family better or worse? We struggle with decisions about relationships, money, life choices. And the list goes on, about all the things that we second guess and struggle with in our lives.

I had a friend call me this last week who is going through a major struggle. This person is also a pastor and the congregation is going to be going through some major changes very soon. My friend called to talk and share what the situation is that is happening as well as to hear any insights I might have for them. We talked for almost an hour and a half about what is going on as well as our lives and families in general, but this was something that is a major struggle and my friend needed to talk about it. You see, the senior pastor my friend works alongside has abruptly decided to step down leaving the congregation and my friend looking around and wondering what to do next. The congregation, other than the staff and council, do not know yet, but they will find out sometime next week as the council works on how to share the news with everyone. Talk about a difficult situation.

Another difficult situation is the one that Jacob finds himself in when God basically orders him to go back to his real home where he will have to face his brother Esau, whom he betrayed not once in his life but twice.

I want to quickly share with you why Jacob is so apprehensive to meet with his brother again and it goes to the two times he mistreated his brother.

It actually goes all the way back to the day the two were born because Jacob and Esau are twins. The day they were born the Bible tells us that Jacob tries to beat Esau out of the womb because the firstborn is the one who receives the double inheritance from the father and is also the one who receives the father’s blessing which is the blessing that God gave to Abraham.

So Jacob steals from Esau twice to get the birthright and the blessing that he had wanted from the day that he was being born into the world. The first is the birthright. Esau is famished after not catching anything hunting and so Jacob trades him a bowl of stew for his birthright and he must have been one starving young man because he does sell his birthright for the stew because as he points out, what is the point of all that inheritance if he’s going to die?

The next time Jacob and his mother Rebekah work together to steal the blessing by dressing him up like his brother. Isaac was basically blind so he could only feel his son so based on his dress and the fake hair he blessed Jacob instead of Esau. Jacob then runs away for fear that Esau will kill him for all the terrible things he has done to him and stolen from him.

We fast forward many years and God has ordered Jacob to go back home and the night before he is supposed to meet with Esau he spends the night alone and he wrestles with this being. We don’t know if it is a holy man, an angel, or God’s own self, but the two of them struggle throughout the whole night. Why are they wrestling? Where did this man/being come from? Did maybe Jacob think that it may have been Esau come to kill him like he had predicted or at the very least one of Esau’s men come to kill him in the night? Who knows, but we do know that they spent the whole night wrestling with neither prevailing over the other. All you athletes out there take note. All night!

The struggle ends with a deadlock but this divine being has to be gone before daybreak and so he must meet a demand of Jacob’s. And that demand is a blessing from this divine being. Which by now Jacob has also discovered. To grant Jacob’s request for a blessing the divine being asks for his name. Jacob gives his name and the being then blesses him by giving him a new name…Israel.

Now a new name doesn’t sound like a divine blessing from above. I happen to like my name, Brian. I’m not sure I’d want it to change. And trust me I am not saying that Jacob in general is a bad name, but let’s consider what we know about Jacob. Jacob spent the first part of his life doing whatever he could to get ahead in life. He stole from his brother twice and tricked his father. He ran away. He wasn’t the best and most honest person with his family after that. Yet, through it all he slowly changed his life and the person he was becoming and the person he had already started to become wasn’t the same “do whatever it takes to get ahead” person that he was before.

Can you imagine the kinds of regrets and struggles Jacob dealt with as he looked at his past decisions and to know that your name forever reminded you that is who you were?

God blessed Israel that night. God blessed Israel by giving him permission to let go of the past. God gave him permission to no longer be defined by the mistakes that he had made in times before. Israel was no longer the Jacob and he need to see that and know that. He needed to know that he didn’t have to worry about meeting up with Esau again because he wasn’t that punk kid that did everything he could to take from his brother and ruin his brother’s life. God gave him permission to no longer be defined and judged by his past mistakes.

Jacob wrestled that night with God. He may have physically wrestled with God that night, but Jacob had also been wrestling with God most if not all nights of his life. Living a life with regrets and pain from what he had done and the choices he made in moments of weakness. Living knowing that much of what had been in his life was the result of dishonesty and deceit. And yet, God comes to him in the night and tells him you’ve struggled enough. You’ve lived with enough pain, with enough doubt, with enough destruction in your life. I no longer see you as the supplanter, but as one who struggles and strives with God and humans. For the strength to change, for the strength and courage to wrestle with me I bless you not as Jacob but as Israel.

I know that my friend and the congregation will be ok. They will struggle but by the help and grace of God they will move on from this difficult chapter in their lives. God has more to their story than this and there was much more to their story before this. The same goes for you and me. Don’t let the past define you. Don’t let your past mistakes or struggles name you forever. Instead shed that baggage. Shed that shame from your life. Let God define you. Let God name you. Let God wrestle with you so that you can come out of that struggle a different person. A person who feels blessed by the God who is there each and every moment for you. You are not defined by the names or the struggles of this world, but by the God who calls you by name and who loves you now and always. Amen.