In the womb he grasped his brother’s heel; as a man he struggled with God. – Hosea 12:3

Today’s Scripture Reading (January 19, 2014): Hosea 11 & 12

Political analyst and radio host Dennis Prager tells the story of a time when a Muslim listener phoned into his radio show with a question. The question was why Dennis, a religious Jew, was not a Muslim. Most of us could probably imagine a number of answers to the question, but I have been intrigued with Dennis’ answer. He believed that the question had been asked with sincerity and so he answered the question in the same way. His reply to his listener was that the name of her religion was “Islam” – and “Islam” means submission to God. Dennis himself is a follower of Judaism, but Judaism is the religion of the children of Israel – and Israel does not mean “submission to God” – it means “struggles with God.” Dennis finished this descriptive stage of the conversation with this comment – Dennis said that he follows Judaism because he would rather struggle with God than to simply submit to God. And, to be honest, I love that answer. Not only do I approve of the answer, but it describes me – I too, would rather struggle with God than to simply submit to God.

Hosea is speaking to the people of Israel and he reminds them of who it is they are. They are not simply the people that God has chosen. And they are definitely not the people that have blindly submitted to God. In actually what they had become was the people that have ignored God. But who Israel was designed to be was the people who struggled with God. And that struggle started with Jacob, the one who was later in his life called Israel. There had been a name change from the one who grasps the heel of his brother – which is the basic story behind the name and the meaning of Jacob – to Israel – the one who struggles with God.

As Christians, I believe that we are supposed to adopt this attitude – we are the ones that join with Israel in the struggle with God. I have been haunted in the past few months by a comment by Walter Wink. He wrote “I for one do not abandon scripture, but neither do I acquiesce. I wrestle with it. I challenge it. I am broken and wounded by it, and then in defeat I sometimes encounter the living God.”

Sometimes I think that we believe that God is happy if we simply submit to him. But the reality is that we are never encounter God through simple submission. And sometimes we totally miss the plan he has for us because we have misunderstood him and have simply submitted to what we had in our heads that he was saying. But when we struggle with God, we get to the root of what God is really saying, not just what we think he is saying. And sometimes we are surprised in the struggle when we begin to realize what God is really about.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Hosea 13 & 14

Note: VantagePoint Community Church (Edmonton) has a new website. Please check it out at www.vantagepointcc.org.