To Wrestle with God
I was nearly a year into my recovery journey, daily exhausted by the mental weight of letting myself eat freely, of taking captive every negative thought. I was so tired. I wanted my old life back. How much easier it would be to just fall back into what I knew.
That day, I wrote this prayer to God:
“Like Jacob, I am wrestling with you. I pray you win.”
The prayer was short, but it captured my grief over this ceaseless battle between my own desires and God’s will, calling upon Jacob’s wrestling with God in Genesis 32.
I can’t imagine life without you, God – but you do not make compromises. You are a jealous God. Help me put it down.
Shortly after praying this, I came across Philippians 3:8: “Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him.”
I noticed that Paul “suffered” the loss of all things – this loss was far from easy, even if I wanted to believe that the Lord was better than anything else. When I started recovery, I could not have fathomed just how much I loved my eating disorder. Giving it up truly caused my soul to suffer - I was terrified of letting my body take the shape that I had dedicated an entire decade of my life to preventing.
I loved my sin so much, that the last thing I wanted to do was obey God. I didn’t trust in the “surpassing worth of knowing Christ.” I wanted to be friends with the world, to have the body I wanted, to control my eating and exercise; and to follow Him at the same time. I began praying Psalm 119, asking God to change my heart to delight in His will for my recovery: “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law…If your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction.”
In this moment, Lord, I really want to rule. I really don’t want to let You rule. I don’t want to die to myself. I don’t want to cede control over my life. I don’t want to suffer. Lord, help me want what You want. Nothing else. I need You to change my heart.
Romans 6:4 says that “We were buried therefore with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”
If I am buried in death with Christ, I am dying to myself. If I am dying, like Christ, then I must battle with my sin in Gethsemane - I must cry out: “not my Will, but yours.” Everything I long to keep, I must lay down. I must wrestle with God in the garden, through prayer, until I have resolved to submit to His will. I must take my sins to the cross. I must bear the pain of dying to self, to “suffer the loss” of all other things that I turned to for peace or comfort. It is not painless, but God’s power – amidst temptation, pain, and doubt, strengthens my resolve. I know Jesus has gone before me. When it is all through, I will be raised to new life - life where God has removed the hardened layers of sin and deceit that covered my heart. Life where I can see freedom for what it is: my heart was one way, and now it is another. These chains I clutched for so long, will fall to the floor.
Recovery deeply challenged my heart. The scriptures throughout this article demonstrate how the word became living and active in my recovery. The Lord provides the words we need to be sustained, and they can change a heart immediately. The Bible speaks a truth deeper than we ourselves could ask of God. It can clarify our own hearts and reveal ways of thinking we had been blind to. It has power to heal and to save, giving LIFE in our lowest moments; we need it to find freedom. We wrestle with God, we continue to die to ourselves, we strive to trust that He is immeasurably better than anything else.
The wrestling is a slog. It is long and slow progress. Sometimes, we have to say, “this is awful, and I will do it anyway.” Some days we just have to trust that we will continue to make a new decision “X” amount of times before our brains can come out of our old habitual thinking. The painful part is not knowing how many times “X” is that we must continue to suffer. We don’t know the day the freedom will come, and in the meantime, the voice of our sinful nature is loud and angry, grasping to take back the reins and put things back under its control.
Every day that I wrestled with the Lord in doubt, denial, faintheartedness, grief, or grumbling, I can now look back on with joy, because He met me there, and He has overcome. Like Jacob, we all wrestle with God and resist His will. But in His love and grace, He brings us out to a place of light, a restful dwelling where we can delight in Him and His beautiful design for our bodies and our lives.
Jacob named the place he wrestled with God Peniel. This literally means "the face of God.” Peniel marked Jacob’s encounter with God, the turning point where he received a new name - Israel - which became his truest identity. I pray that you who are reading this will continue to wrestle faithfully, to look upon the face of God, and at last find your truest identity in the midst of His grace and healing power.
- Alexandra
Lover of Jesus. Nature Enthusiast. Book Nerd. Thinker. Overcomer
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FINDINGbalance is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization providing non-clinical support and encouragement to those battling food issues. The contents of this blog article, including any attachments, are for educational purposes only and are not intended to diagnose, treat, or prescribe a particular course of action. If you or someone you care about is battling an eating disorder, please seek care from a licensed professional. If you are in crisis and need immediate support, please call, text, or chat 988 to speak with someone at the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, 24/7.