God-wrestler

I think the first time I learned and retained that "Israel" means "God-wrestler" (I've also heard: "he struggles with God") was my senior year of college. I really didn't like it. I complained to Jeremy at the train station (because I learned the weekend of improv regionals) that God and Israel are supposed to be spouses! Not wrestle each other. Yucky. I hate wrestling. (I do struggle with God sometimes, but again, that doesn't sound like a good thing.)

When I was reading Prayer by Philip Yancey he said some of the people in the Bible who were most richly rewarded were those who bargained with God and got in His face about stuff. God frequently is petitioned and shows even more mercy than He was going to. Yancey (paraphrase) writes that He likes when we ask because it can unleash more mercy on earth. Obviously I can see how this is so in the case of Abraham asking to spare those cities if fewer and fewer righteous people can be found (Genesis 18:16-33 if you forgot). Yancey asks: "Abraham stopped asking; would God have spared the cities for just one person?" Also there's that story in Luke 18:1-8 about the widow who won't stop bothering the judge until he gives her the justice she asks for. My TNIV Luke 18:1 says "Jesus told [this] parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up." And there are plenty of others in the Bible too.

Yancey also mentions his relationships with the people closest to him in life, like his brother, his wife, and his editor. About them he says "with each of these people, my intimate partners, I act in a way reminiscent of the bargaining scenes with God. I make suggestions, back off, accommodate their point of view, reach a compromise and come away changed."

Obviously I think it's possible to argue/fight/wrestle someone without love, but maybe there's significance in the fact that they can be done with love, too, and it might be a sign of love to be willing to. It can be really really hard to bring up some things with people, and most of us aren't willing to talk about tough stuff with those we don't know too well. Some aren't even willing to bring them up with friends. But like Yancey says, challenge changes us.

There was also a part I read and was disgusted by. Yancey talks about wrestling his brother in the dark when they were both little kids. And I am paraphrasing this, but he said it was a lot like making love, because you grapple back and forth, using up your energy against each other, body on body, then fall back, spent. I was like, "hello, incest!" but the image has stuck with me for months now. Perhaps because he's right that wrestling indicates a certain closeness. That's why it's far more blessed to wrestle with God than to simply be far away from Him. Sometimes literally.. Jacob receives God's blessing (after having to ask for it) when the wrestling is over in Genesis 32:26-29.

Maybe this is part of the key to the spousal relationship between Israel and God. Maybe a marriage is a promise to keep wrestling and not just peace out when hard stuff comes up, because something of deep value is gained through the back-and-forth of an honest, loving challenge. And maybe that something is the experience of turning into the strong and selfless person you were created to be in the arms of the one you love best.