Are You A Wrestler?

The Olympic committee is debating whether to drop wrestling from the 2020 Olympic Games. Apparently, the program is too crowded, so wrestling must vie for the one remaining spot with eight other sports: baseball, softball, karate, squash, rollersports, sports climbing, wakeboard and wushu (martial arts). I find this news disappointing.

Because I am a wrestler.

Now I'm not talking about wearing a spandex singlet with special headgear while I maneuver my way around a 28-foot circle on a mat. I am not that type of wrestler.

When I was in high school, our wrestling team, the Albert Lea Tigers, sent competitors to state every year. A common sight before and after school were members of the wrestling team running steps, working out in the weight room, or trying to make their weight class by losing any extra pounds in a zippered sweat bag. Wrestling, at our school, was a big deal.

A match consisted of 3 two-minute periods. At the start of the first period, the two competitors faced each other in a standing position.  Each wrestler moved around the mat, sizing up his competition, looking for an opportunity to take control of the match by taking down his opponent. After all the training, it came down to this.

Standing.

Standing took a lot of energy. It was not a position of rest, but a position of strategy as each wrestler sought to gain control and maintain restraining power over his opponent. I am this type of wrestler.

I wrestle with truths of our faith. Of suffering and sickness and tragedy and where is God in it all. I want easy answers, but I find that the longer I walk on this faith journey, the more questions I have. My faith is not neat and tidy. I haven't found that God fits very well in any box. And I envy those who do not wrestle, who sometimes quote scripture passages to me with such ease, who are very good at explaining God, but as a wrestler, I have discovered that an explanation of God does not satisfy my questioning.

I desire an encounter with him--a knowing that in the deepest, darkest place, his love goes deeper still.

Ephesians 6 says that once we have done everything else in our slug-it-out, fight-with-each-waking-breath faith journey, we are to stand.

"After you have done everything -- stand." (verse 13)

After the prayers and the Bible reading and the church services and the doctors saying there is nothing more they can do--stand.

So, I remind myself--to stand is not a position of rest. It is a position of strategy as I seek to gain control (of my hope, my trust, my faith) and maintain restraining power over the opponent (discouragement, doubt, unbelief).

I am a wrestler.

I have done everything...so...I stand.

Today, on your journey with faith, if you are in a wrestling place, I pray you will have the strength

to stand.