Well...it has been a long while since I last posted.... will try to dust off my fingers and start typing else I be stricken with alhziemer? Have you ever been in that situation? Not knowing what to do when you are in a dire situation? Like now? What to do, huh, when my "tai kor" (a.k.a Uncle Eric) has moved on to other ministries from the YA? Or that future is so uncertain with my working contract expiring prematurely and the prospect of the need of funds for college studies. Or the not feeling that well physically situation? The feeling of the heart weighing a tonne of bricks, and the lips could offer only dry words. One turns to prayer and scriptures as a form of antidote and the silence has never been more deafening. That heavy and helpless feeling does not abate. If my theology is right, it is not supposed to. My propensity to trust should increase, but, feeling, no! What do you do when you do not know what to do? You wrestle? Wrestle? Just like Jacob? Yes, just like Jacob wrestled with God. Ronn Dunn (author of When Heaven is Silent) described a situation when he could not recognised his postman in an airport just because he was not in uniform. Is life like that too? Often we could not recognise a thing because it was wrapped in a different package. A blessing is not recognised when wrapped in a difficulty. Who can see beyond a failed exam? What blessing can come in a failed exam? Isn't that how our finite mind would argue?Twenty years have passed, since the conman, Jacob, cheated his brother of his birth right and blessings. And Jacob now stands at the edge of the stream of Jabbok, after he received news that his brother Esau and his entourage of 400 men is set to meet him. He is unsure whether Esau has forgiven him. Jacob breaks his own entourage into 2, sending his family ahead to mitigate the risk. There at the edge of Jabbok he spent his night alone with his miseries, with his insecurities, with his "what to do when you don't know what to do" feelings. Genesis 32 tells us his blessings came admidst his struggles and wrestles with the angel. If you have seen a Olympic wrestling contest before, you realised that contestants throw everything at each other. The contest highlights your strength, yet, it also exposes your weaknesses. You appear to gain the upper hand, within that same breath, you are interlocked in a helpless grip and stranglehold by your opponent. That is how wrestling is supposed to be. God and us in a wrestling match and we throw everything at each other. We throw our complaints and our immaturities, He throws His often miscontrued-by-us loving actions. I had often wondered how would an angel lose to a human in a wrestling match, unless..., unless the former had wanted the latter to win. At the breaking of dawn, God who was with Jacob through his entire wrestling episode, showed Jacob, a face not of fear and hopelessness, but a face of love to Jacob. His limp reminded him vividly of his blessing. What am I do when I don't know what to do, Lord? I don't know, but I do know that you are with me AND you often package your blessings in different forms with or without a limp. Amen. Labels: love of God, Problems
