I am teaching out of the Book of Job for our parish bible studies. Consider the following insight by Job on the spiritual life:
God is wise in heart and mighty in strength;
who has withstood him and remained unscathed? (Job 9:3)
At first glance, we might read this to mean that we don’t dare talk back to God or resist Him lest He punish us, but this would be a superficial interpretation. The text surely speaks more richly, of the spiritual life and the journey we must make with God.
It recalls a story about Jacob, told in the 32nd chapter of Genesis. Jacob is in the desert (often a place of testing and encounter) and is returning to make amends with his brother Esau, from whom is estranged. During the night Jacob has a mysterious encounter with God. The text recounts that he wrestles with a man, but is it a man, an angel, or God? Through the night, Jacob wrestles with this man. Even more mysteriously (if the “man” is God), the text says that Jacob “prevails,” or at least holds his own. To end the struggle, God disables Jacob by touching his hip. Out of respect, God then gives Jacob a new name:
Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome (Gen 32:28).
The name “Israel” means “he who wrestles (strives) with God.”
As a result of this encounter, Jacob would limp for the rest of his life, leaning on a staff for support. It was as if to say that he would have to learn to lean on God and strive with God rather than against Him. Injured or not, this would be a blessing for Jacob, a new and deeper stage in his walk with God.
And so Job rightly said, Who has withstood God and remained unscathed? Our spiritual life can be seen as this kind of struggle. God respects our freedom and is “glad” to engage us. At least we are willing to stay in a conversation with Him rather than running from Him or refusing to be engaged at all.
As for Job, Jacob, and countless others before us, so too for us. We will not emerge from this spiritual relationship with God unchanged or unscathed. This is because our life with God is no mere friendship, or only a source of consolation. God is Lord and Father, and He has a difficult work to accomplish in us, who (like Jacob) can be stubborn, prideful, and resistant.
As an example, consider how in this world the relationship between parents and children is one of love but also one that is filled with tensions. This is due to the nature of the relationship. Parents, in addition to giving good and pleasant things to their children, also have difficult tasks in their formation. Children must be disciplined and disabused of selfish or destructive behaviors. Children must be taught things that do not necessarily please them. Parents must often make demands on their children that summon them to greater things requiring sacrifice and effort.
None of this is easy—and neither is our relationship with God. Our relationship is not merely about pleasantries. God must work to break sinful, selfish, and harmful drives within us. He must often imbue us with teachings that go against our desires and priorities.
Are you willing to struggle and to strive with God? You will be blessed! No one goes away from Jesus unchanged. No one who has God for his true Father will be unchanged, or “unscathed” as Job puts it. Jacob limped and leaned on a cane for the rest of his life (as a sign of humility). How do you limp? Where are your healing wounds in the saving struggle with God?
The song in this video is a bit over the top; I don’t think Jesus was conflicted, as this song implies. But we often are. The struggle can be difficult, but stay in it!
Jacob wrestles with God and becomes Israel, blessing with pain and slowness of journey, persistence with God, night after night, you wrestle with the Divine, bless us comes with the light of daybreak to recognize your encounter with the Divine, how many times will you wrestle your God O’Israel, how many times will you know him in the morning, battle and
bruised you have prevailed upon his blessing and move closer to an Israel who will jump and leap when healed by the Man whose name you know not.
I find it interesting that, when praying and asking for guidance, I felt moved to read the Book of Job then, upon going to mass the next day the Old Testament selection was from the Book of Job.
Anyway, I carried on with 2 or 3 chapters each day and, upon reading Job 32:1&2 where Elihu is upset that Job is describing himself as “because he was convinced of his uprightness.” I immediately thought of Luke 18:9-14 where the Pharisee is focussing only on what he feels he does right and doesn’t look to human imperfections that most everyone (including myself) has.
The tax collector, “…stood some distance away, not daring even to raise his eyes to heaven; but he beat his breast and said, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”