POLOKWANE – Many a times I hear people saying: “Not you too, Lord! Everybody is wrestling with me; my family, my children, my boss, my church, my mind, everything is against me and now You!”
Yes, it may be correct that everyone or everything is wrestling with you at the moment. You feel challenged and even contemplate taking your life.
However, allow me to rub an additional salt on your agonising wound – “God did not come to baby you either”. At times His objective isn’t to bring you cosiness as you expect, but to confront and challenge the way you live.
“So Jacob was alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak,” (Genesis 32:24). Jacob lived in a comfort zone, thinking he was on top of the world, managing his life satisfactorily. But he did not realise what a mess his life really was, until God had to step in to confront him.
Dear friend, if God confronts you, He does that for a reason. He is calling, equipping and preparing you according to his purpose. The discomfort he causes you is meant to make you move away from mediocrity so you can become a better person whom He has called to be the “salt and the light” of the world.
“Your character gets beaten into shape by God’s hammer and sculptured by every knife of God,” says Dr Agrippa Khathide.
Even though people hate going through a discomfort zone, they don’t realise that there are no victories without battles; that heroes are conspicuous by their scars. The opposition you are facing at the moment is there to make you achieve something better.
God is out to confront you before you lose your greatest commodity-life. He is not happy seeing you losing so many things in life – losing your integrity and respect, your love and peace, losing your marriage, your faith and many others.
He is wrestling with you to make you understand that you are not cursed but blessed; not weak but strong; not lost but found; not sick but healed; that you are no longer a slave to alcohol and substance abuse; that you are no longer an abusive partner, but you are the “son and daughter of the Living God.”
Everything happens to you for a reason. The pain you have been feeling can’t compare to the joy that you are yet to experience.
