After speaking about wrestling with God in prayer, I went home thinking to myself- well, I ought to tell that to myself.
I had a gaping hole to fill in @kitesong.global. Who would apply? Where would funding come from? I was despondent.
Yet, this story challenged me to ask myself- when God invites us into His wrestling ring, would we take the easy way out and pass, or like Jacob, press in with tenacious faith and cry, “I will not let You go until You bless me!”
Yesterday, I was asked to meet someone. Feeling small in an ostentatious building with high ceilings, I held back tears. I did not want to be there, did not want to invest emotionally in sharing my life story, only to be told, “What you do is good, and we you the best.”
Going up the sterile lift, I prayed, “God, send me an Angel to sit with me in the room.”
How bizarre it was then for me to see a white-haired man who had crashed in on the meeting, who wasn’t supposed to be part of it.
At the end of my slides, I used every ounce of strength to hold in my tears. I was done. I wanted to go home.
When the younger man laughed and said, “Oh, I know someone who would love to help,” I literally looked down to hide my tears. I don’t want to be doing this.
I was prepared to leave when the older man, the angel God had sent, put his arm round the younger man and said, “Hey, between you and me, we can take care of this for her.”
I wept on the way home.
Laughing heartily, the Angel looked at me and said warmly, “You talked about believing in the power of small dreams, of faith! You need to re-listen to your own message! He will always provide for you.”
I laughed and cried, all at once.
For the price of wrestling with God, Jacob suffered a permanent disability. Like him, I felt humiliated. But it was the very thing that made him lean onto God, and gave him a new identity- Israel.
Today, if you’re struggling to believe for a breakthrough, don’t give up. Like Jacob, wrestle with God in the deep night till light of day. Preach to yourself. Speak to your spirt.
He is there waiting to crown you with Faith.