Did I Wrestle With God or Did God Wrestle With Me?

I thought I was happy, or at least content. I was co-pastoring a church with my ex-husband. He was the senior minister, and I was the worship minister. We had a good thing going—honestly—a lovely congregation full of sincere, kind people. There were challenges, of course. There are always challenges. But compared to many of our ministry friends, we considered ourselves deeply blessed.

But then, my husband realized he was unhappy, bored, and discontent.

He had an affair with a woman who was barely an adult.

Our world turned upside down.

I’m not sure I have ever regained my footing, because I learned not to trust the ground. Everything collapsed beneath us. It happened so fast.

I’m not a big fan of wrestling. It is very hands-on—sweaty, visceral, and raw. In basketball or volleyball, players maintain a respectable, civilized distance from one another. But wrestling requires full-body engagement and an uncomfortably tight intimacy. Participants must contort their bodies. They bend, twist, and balance—one moment locked in a desperate embrace, the next clawing at the dirt as they strategize how to outmaneuver each other’s weight.

I may not like wrestling, but apparently it is God’s favorite sport.

God once met Jacob beside a river to engage in a wrestling match. Can you imagine? Wrestling with God Himself?

What would it even mean to wrestle with God?

Like physical wrestling, spiritual wrestling must embody many of the same qualities: intimacy, movement, contortion, and calculated thinking. We are frequently told in modern religious spaces to simply trust God, to be content with our lot, and to quietly accept “God’s will.” We are told this from curated stages, by well-meaning spiritual leaders, and by our sometimes defensive religious institutions.

But I cannot help wondering if acceptance and obedience are sometimes easy words used to avoid a far more significant calling: the call to wrestle with God, or at least to allow Him to wrestle with us.

It is both a terrifying and freeing thought.