Friend

 "Then Jacob was left alone and a man wrestled with him till daybreak." Genesis 32:24

One of our great problems with God is that He rarely behaves as we would like. This can be very disconcerting. We like and want a God we can figure out. A God whose movements and actions can be predicted. A God who is, in the words of author and pastor R.T. Kendall, "safe and nice." The problem, says Kendall, is that God is not safe and nice, but as C.S. Lewis says in The Chronicles of Narnia, "He is good." This is what we must choose to believe about Him and put our trust in. Even when He appears to be anything but good, and beloved, such times will surely come to each of us.

God called Abraham His friend. The Bible tells us that He spoke to Moses, "As one speaks to a friend." Yet both of these men had very real times when God seemed decidedly unfriendly to them. He sent them places they would never have chosen to go. He led through times and experiences that contained great amounts of pain and hardship. Job was God's friend, yet Job went through a time in his life when he felt that His God, His friend, was completely against him. Have you been there? Are you there now? In these places our beliefs about Him will be tested. He will not be safe. He will not be nice. But He will be good. The great challenge is that we will believe this. Do we believe this?

In his book, "Out Of Your Comfort Zone," Kendall says, "There is a betrayal barrier with God that we must break through, for there will be times when He appears to betray us." In those times, what will we believe about Him? What will you believe about Him? Kendall says this about Jacob's wrestling with God in Genesis 32. "At some point in Jacob's wrestling with God, he realized this was not an enemy, but a friend, and he determined he would not let go without a blessing." We come to desert places and we will "wrestle" with Him in those places. Wrestle over the loss, pain, heartache, and seeming rejection. If we will see that if we, like Jacob, will cling to Him there, we will come to see that He is really our friend, and that He means, in that place, to bless us. To take us through in victory is we will just hold on to Him.

Romans 8:28, that "All things work together for good for those that love God," sounds great when we speak it to encourage someone else. How about when all these things have hit our lives, especially when "these things" seem to hit all at once? Where is the good? Where is God? Hold on to Him. He is there in these very things. There because He promises to be. Not as a helpless observer, standing by, wringing His hands, telling us to somehow hold on, endure, survive, get through it all. No, He's there as Mighty God, Wonderful Savior, Prince of Peace. He's the One who's triumphed over "all things."

It's a wonderful thing to be a "friend of God," but we don't get there by merely saying it. We get there by living it. Day by day, walking with Him. Walking through the battles, the trials, the "all things" that bombard and make no sense. Those things we wrestle so greatly with. In the wrestling, choose to believe you are facing not an enemy, but a Friend. He offers His friendship. Not cheaply, but fully. He extends His hand of friendship to you. Will you dare to take it?

Blessings,
Pastor O