One day in the car, when my now adolescent boys were much younger, we posed a silly question just to see how they would respond.\u00a0 We asked each of them, \u201cAre you a lover or a fighter?\u201d\u00a0 My oldest son, with a sweet smile on his face, replied, \u201cI\u2019m a lover.\u201d\u00a0 Turning to my younger son, we heard him declare emphatically, with fire in his eyes, \u201cI\u2019m a fighter.\u201d\u00a0 At the time, my husband and I laughed knowingly since even at the young age of 3, he had already demonstrated just how much of a fighter he was.<\/p>\n
The truth is, he comes by it honestly.\u00a0 I am also a fighter.\u00a0 I rarely accept things at face value and fight hard against stereotypes and assumptions.\u00a0 I take a stand on social issues and approach obstacles with relentless tenacity.\u00a0 I fight for what I want.\u00a0 I fight for what I believe.\u00a0 I fight for my family and my friends.\u00a0 I fight when I feel cornered or threatened.\u00a0 I am a fighter.<\/p>\n
My fighting nature also shows up in my faith.\u00a0 Over the years, I have consistently grappled with Biblical truths and principals, often getting angry with God and putting up my fists. \u00a0Trusting Him is difficult for me and usually only comes when I am exhausted from struggling against His will.\u00a0 I find that the hardest, but most important lessons I\u2019ve learned often come at a great price.\u00a0 I don\u2019t learn easily or quickly and I find that nearly every hurdle I clear in my faith follows a long season of wrestling with God.<\/p>\n
For this reason, I feel a bit of a kindred spirit with Jacob.\u00a0 In Genesis 32, Jacob sends his wives and children ahead of him on their journey and he remains behind.\u00a0 That night, \u201ca man wrestled with him until the breaking of day.\u201d\u00a0 As the night unfolds, it turns out that Jacob is quite a fighter.\u00a0 The struggle doesn\u2019t end until the man touches Jacob\u2019s hip socket, putting it out of joint.\u00a0 Realizing he\u2019s beaten, yet refusing to relent, he demands a blessing from the man.\u00a0 It\u2019s then revealed that the man is God, who in turn blesses Jacob and renames him Israel.<\/p>\n
When dawn breaks, Jacob continues with his journey, however, he now walks with a limp.\u00a0 When I\u2019ve considered this outcome in the past, I\u2019ve viewed the limp as a hindrance, a punishment, a nasty side effect of the evening\u2019s events.\u00a0 However, lately I\u2019ve seen the gracious blessing in the limp.<\/p>\n
If we think of it from a medical or physiological perspective, the limp indicates that something didn\u2019t heal properly or fully.\u00a0 When someone breaks a bone, sprains an ankle or pulls a muscle, the goal of the physician is to completely restore the wounded area to full use.\u00a0 Healing is declared when we are \u201cas good as new\u201d, when the affected limb functions as well as it did prior to the damage. \u00a0The crutches only go away when the leg is 100%, when it can bear the full weight of the person.\u00a0 The goal of physical healing is complete restoration with no residual pain or discomfort, as if the injury never occurred at all.<\/p>\n
And yet, spiritually, I believe that a limp is exactly what we should want after we\u2019ve wrestled with God.\u00a0 I find that when I do battle with my Father, when I go to the mattress pitting my will against His, there is only resolution and restoration when I come away utterly different than when I began the struggle.\u00a0 In other words, I don\u2019t want to be restored to my previous condition.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want my heart returned to its innate human nature.\u00a0 I want to be changed.\u00a0 I should be changed.\u00a0 I need to be changed. \u00a0In the midst of the fight, God\u2019s \u201cinjury\u201d should leave me transformed with little resemblance to my prior appearance.\u00a0 I should be walking with a limp.\u00a0 Furthermore, that limp should remind me every day, every moment, that I wrestled with my God and because of that I am a new creation.\u00a0 Because He touched me, because He chipped away, no matter how painfully, at my humanness, there is less of me and more of Him.<\/p>\n
I wonder if Jacob was grateful for his limp.\u00a0 I wonder if every uncomfortable step was a glorious reminder of the evening his God blessed him with a new identity.\u00a0 I wonder if he lay in bed at night favoring his injured hip, recalling the magnificent dawn that broke after the Great Physician had His way with not only his body, but his heart as well.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no doubt about it.\u00a0 Being a fighter is tough business.\u00a0 If all my wrestling with God were actually to present physically I might be in a full body cast.\u00a0 But I can\u2019t imagine not fighting.\u00a0 I can\u2019t imagine missing out on the blessings that inevitably come to me after the struggle.\u00a0 I wouldn\u2019t trade the pain for the magnificent glimpses I get in the midst of it all.\u00a0 I will continue to fight.\u00a0 It\u2019s in my very nature.\u00a0 And after every conflict I will limp.\u00a0 But I will also be limping along a little closer to God.<\/p>\n
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