Wrestling

 

Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.

—Luke 18:1

I know very little about the sport of wrestling. I do know, however, that wrestlers struggle from beginning to end. In another sport, as when a basketball team has 30 points more than the opponent, wrestlers can’t ever say, “OK. I’m ahead now, so the rest should be easy.” Until the very end of the match, wrestling requires persistence, perseverance, use of every muscle, and the application of every tactic that a wrestler knows.

In Genesis 32:24-32 we read the story of Jacob, terrified of the danger that lay ahead for its effect on him and his family. First, Jacob prayed and asked God to protect him and his family. Then, he strategized a way to approach his estranged brother, Esau, with humility, represented by various gifts borne by Jacob’s servants.

The text then tells us that having sent his servants and family on ahead, Jacob remained where he was, waiting on an answer to his prayer. The answer came in the middle of the night.

Suddenly, Jacob found himself wrestling with a man that he later learned was actually an angel of God. They wrestled all night in answer to Jacob’s prayer. In fact, even after daybreak came and the angel suggested they end the struggle, Jacob said to him, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” Jacob wouldn’t stop until his adversary dislocated Jacob’s hip. Jacob strained every muscle until he received the blessing for which he had prayed.

In a New Testament passage found in Luke 18:1-8, Jesus took up a similar theme. He told the parable of a woman who kept coming to a judge who could care less about her case. She bothered him and struggled against his apathy until he gave in and gave her the justice for which she was asking.

The accounts of these kinds of prayer strengthens our faith and encourages us that in our persistence we, too, will receive victory from God in response to our prayers. God, unlike the apathetic judge, is not unjust, nor bothered by our persistence in coming to Him in prayer. But, sometimes, God withholds His blessing until we learn to how to wrestle with all that constrains us.

Andrew Murray, in his book, With Christ in the School of Prayer, dedicates a chapter to this parable of the Persistent Widow. He writes the following:¹

The husbandman does indeed long for his harvest, but knows that it must have its full time of sunshine and rain, and has long patience… And it is the Father, in whose hands are the times and seasons, who alone knows the moment when the soul or the Church is ripened to that fulness of faith in which it can really take and keep the blessing. As a father who longs to have his only child home from school, and yet waits patiently till the time of training is completed, so it is with God and His children.

When we compare this kind of waiting to wrestling, we begin to see how we need the exercise of the struggle, the straining of every muscle, and the perseverance of all our human modalities—heart, soul, mind, and strength—to win the victory.

When we pray, we often must wait for an answer much longer than we at first expected. But, in response, we must take Jesus’s admonition to “pray and not give up!” If we do, He will come and will come “quickly” in accordance with His perfect will for us.

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1 Murray, Andrew. With Christ in the School of Prayer, Old Tappan N.J.: Fleming Revell Company, 1953. Pp.88-89.