Leading with a Limp
Tera Bradham
So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. - Genesis 32:23-24
He had been fighting all night, weary with exhaustion. He thought he was well-matched with his adversary, since he had sustained the wrestling match for nearly eight hours. But in one instant, everything changed. All the man did was touch his hip, and he was instantaneously crippled.
With the medical technology of the day, there was nothing Jacob could do to fix his hip. In fact, he probably walked with a limp for the rest of his life. His body permanently demonstrated the struggle it had been through with the King of the universe.
Much like Jacob in the Bible, we all wrestle with God at some point in our lives. Sometimes we wrestle with God because we choose to lean in and delve into the mysteries of God. But much more often we wrestle with God because our circumstances thrust the struggle upon us. Few of us choose to struggle when our circumstances are good; when things are easy, we take the path of least resistance and claim our success brings glory to God.
Don’t hear what I’m not saying. You can absolutely steward your gifts and talents in a way that makes God proud and brings His name glory. But where we often miss God’s heart is when we think the injury that put us on the sidelines is preventing us from reaching our destiny, rather than seeing it as a catalyst for propelling us into God’s marvelous plan for our lives.
In a country imbued with the American dream, we struggle when confronted with excruciating, debilitating pain. Our version of the God who “helps those who help themselves” cannot be reconciled with the God who allows circumstances beyond our control in order to draw us closer to Him. It cannot be reconciled with a God who shows up in mercy to wrestle the selfishness, pride, and greed from our hearts.
If your injury, trial, or hardship has caused you to doubt God, praise Him for it. You have been blessed with acceptance into the school of suffering, and it is in its chairs of pain that you will learn more in one class than you could in a lifetime of the school of success.
So question God’s goodness. Doubt His plans. Challenge His love.
Because it is only in this wrestling that you will find out who God is. It is only in this courageous exchange that you will find yourself confronted with a God who is more generous and complex than you could have ever fathomed. And in the heat of the battle, don’t be surprised if you feel the quick jab of God’s finger dislodging your hip. When God reminds you who He is, you will leave with a battle scar.
But scars are worth their weight in gold. It is better to live the rest of your life with a limp than to walk into eternity with a proud heart ripe to be humbled. Your body will heal in time. But what are you doing in the waiting? You can submit to your feeble, limited understanding of the world and walk away from the gift of this trial unchanged, or you can surrender to the struggle, commit to the battle, and lock arms with a God who is worth the wrestle.
Injuries are blessings because they make us wrestle with God. They make us question our beliefs, our values, and our ambitions. Injuries are the ultimate idol-crushers, because they make us walk out what we have claimed we believed all along.
Don’t waste the pain you’re in right now. Most people walking the earth will waste their pain, but not you. No pain that is given to God is wasted. When we give our hurts to the Lord, He will press them down in the crucible of His love, He will refine them in the mine of his protection, and He will pour us out in an offering of praise to His holy name. When our pain has been redeemed, He will have used it to forge a sword of victory with which to fight the enemy.
We may walk with a limp, but we’ll fight from the side of victory with the sword of our redemption striking terror in the lies of all the demonic forces that have tried to keep us from wrestling with the magnificence of God. Don’t let the enemy win. God is using this pain to work something in you more beautiful than anything you could ever ask for or imagine. He is working it all together for your good and His glory. If you let Him, He will turn your deepest wounds into your greatest weapons.
Keep wrestling, friend. Let God show you who He is.