Your daily Olympic devotional
A snippet from a new sports devotional, The Spirit of Victory. Available through your favourite bookstore.
Wrestling with God - Genesis 32
In wrestling, the aim is to try and bring your opponent to a position of submission. You search for a point of weakness in which they “tap out” as a signal they have submitted to the pain and acknowledge the superior strategy of their opponent.
In Genesis chapter 32, Jacob wrestles with God. He had been wrestling with others all his life - from wrestling with his brother, Esau in the womb to his father-in-law Laban. Jacob was a person, like we all are, searching for acceptance and meaning in life. Now he is all alone in the dark wrestling with a man of equal strength, yet so powerful that He can dismember Jacob at a touch of his hip.
Jacob’s opponent (God Himself) disables his hip for a touch and then his head (i.e. his mind). With light approaching, Jacob realises that he is actually wrestling with the Divine. The one thing he had been searching for his whole life, acceptance from God, was now right in front of him. So important was it, that he was willing to face death than let it go.
The result is God blesses Jacob, he is given a new name that his family adopt (Israel), and he finds a true meaning in life in the promises of God. Jacob and his nation’s story reflect our own story: wrestling with life to find meaning.
Application today – Olympic gold doesn’t satisfy like Jesus
Winning Olympic gold does not fully satisfy. This was shown in research I conducted as part of a Government funded research team. We interviewed 18 Australian Olympic Gold medal winners asking what impact winning gold had on their lives. Their experiences as gold medallists mirror Jacob’s search for meaning.
These Olympic champion’s pursuit of this goal had many positive aspects, however, a majority (17 out of the 18) reported a significant number of negative experiences associated with their win. Winning gold is an amazing achievement. However, as Jacob found, real meaning in your life comes from a deeper understanding of how God’s plan transforms your life’s plan.
Searching for God means wrestling with His plan. It means seeing Jesus’ own victorious wrestle with sin on our behalf. In this wrestling, Jesus didn’t tap. Jesus did not submit to temptation or evade this self-sacrifice. He conquered sin and death and won the victory through His resurrection.