Wrestling with unanswered questions.
Then Jacob asked him, “Please tell me your name.”
But he answered, “Why do you ask my name?” And he blessed him there.
Genesis 32:29 (CSB)
I sat in the church pew five rows from the front, shaking, tears streaming down my face. The church I was attending was a repurposed movie theatre. The stage rose in the front to meet the cascading stadium seats. The lights may very well have been up, but I remember it being dark with only the stage lit up, keeping my focus squarely on the pastor. I was furious, not at the pastor, but at God.
It was my sophomore year of college, and I was experiencing massive, to me at least, upheaval in my world. My maternal grandfather passed away, and my previously intact immediate family was split between two states as they navigating selling their business and relocating. These issues in and of themselves are not out of the ordinary, but for me they turned into a resentment that boiled over into full blown rage one Sunday morning. I didn’t like that my world was suddenly making a lot less sense.
I was angry the business and house hadn’t sold. I was angry that mom had missed my 18th birthday. I was angry that my dad was in the hospital for an unexpected illness (he fully recovered). I was angry that my family was separated. I was angry that my family was moving to another state. I was angry with God for not doing things the way that I thought He should.
Ultimately, I was scared of the changes taking place in my life and with my family. It felt like all the security and stability I had always known was a rug that was getting viciously ripped out from under my feet. Notice also that I was convinced that I knew better than God and would have been much better off if I had been the one actually in control of things. I don’t like messy situations.
I spent most of that year angry with God, doubting His goodness and sovereignty, and resenting the fact that I wasn’t actually the one in charge of things. This lasted until the final class of Core 250 – the second of a trio of classes that all students at my university were required to take. In this final session, one of the professors for the course shared his story of faith and doubt, of his own wrestling with God. I left that day knowing it was okay to ask God the hard questions.
God could handle my anger and my questions. Even if I never received an answer, I could bring my questions to God. I left class feeling a depth of peace I had been missing all year.
The curious thing about this year of questioning and doubting was it made me reevaluate my faith. In the end, I realized I had made my faith my own. I no longer looked to my parents or pastor or friends for their faith. They would still influence me and mentor me, but now I could claim my faith for its own sake. My relationship with God was not based on anyone else’s anymore, now it was mine alone.
My anger finally began to ease. My frustration and my questions were not answered, but my perspective had changed. I began to understand that God was so much bigger than my questions. He was sovereign. He was good. No question, doubt, or fear would change those facts. I wrestled with God that year, and at the end of it, I left blessed by His peace and strengthened in my faith which had been made stronger for all my doubts and questions.
When I think of wrestling with God, I am immediately reminded of one of my favorite stories in the Old Testament. In Genesis 32, Jacob, the father of the Israelite tribes, had a memorable encounter with God. On the night before meeting up with the brother, whom he had tricked out of birthright and blessing, Jacob spent the night alone until a man came and wrestled with him until daybreak (32:24). Jacob refused to let go until the man blessed him. The man renamed Jacob with the name Israel at which point Jacob asked the man his name, a question he had no doubt been thinking for most of the night at this point. But the man answered question for question, “Why do you ask my name?” (32:29), then he blessed Jacob.
Jacob is left with an unanswered question, but he recognized that he had been wrestling with God. I am no Jacob and I did not have a face-to-face wrestling match with God, but perhaps I had my own wrestling match. I questioned and doubted and raged, and in the end, when I was still left with my questions, God blessed me with peace and faith. I was trying to take control, and God loved me too much to let me take over. He knew I would make a miserable mess of things if I were left in charge. That often means I have questions about what God is doing though.
God is not scared of my questions. He is not scared of your questions. I tend to think that He wants us to ask our questions. We need to keep wrestling and keep asking. You might never get an answer for your questions, I certainly didn’t. Perhaps though, getting an answer is never the point. Perhaps it’s learning to trust God in the unknown and the uncertain; it’s wrestling through the hard-to-answer questions; it’s yielding control of each and every situation to God. It’s trusting that God is good and sovereign, even when we are stuck with unanswered questions.
