Why Wrestle?

 

As a teacher, I invite my students to dialogue openly with me about any classroom concern.  My greatest desire is that they would learn to think, and even if that means that they challenge me at times, I want them to learn to reason critically.  As a result, I encourage respectful, appropriately timed dialogue about grades or classroom procedure or assignments.  My typical process is that I hand back major assignments, papers, or projects at the end of class and then encourage students to set up after school appointments if they have questions or concerns.  Most students, however, never follow up about grades.  Usually, they easily accept whatever grade they are given.  It is rare that a student will take the initiative to set an appointment and engage in polite conversation with me, but I greatly admire those students who do.  I always think it shows a high level of maturity for them to come to me with their project and their rubrics and ask specific questions or give well thought out reasons for why they believe they should have earned a higher grade.  I love those conversations.  Typically, I do not change grades but rather explain the rubric so they understand it more clearly, but there are times when students point out a perspective or make such a good argument that I am willing to adjust their points.

 

I am reading a book on prayer by Philip Yancey, and today’s section was about wrestling with God.  In it he had included a quote from Archbishop Trench that says, “Prayer is not overcoming God’s reluctance, it is laying hold of his highest willingness.”  The quote made me think about the students in my classroom and their conversations about grades.  The goal in our conversations is not for them to overcome my reluctance to give them good grades – I want them to do well.  The goal would be for them to help me find a reason they deserve the grade they want – to appeal to my willingness to adjust their grades.  I am not perfect like God, so this is not the best analogy, but it did help me start thinking about why God might want us to wrestle with him.

 

Unlike me, God makes perfect decisions.  He doesn’t make mistakes and all his decisions have precise goals.  So, as Philip Yancey gave illustrations about Moses and Abraham both arguing with God to gain certain blessings or concessions, I had to wonder about God’s mindset.  What is the goal in wrestling?  Philip Yancey says it is that we would gain insight into the merciful side of God’s character that outweighs his anger at sin – so that we would see how much he does long to be merciful and appeal to that.  I wonder if it might also help us want something as badly as God wants it or to gain his perspective so that we can see our desire is wrongly placed.

 

I think about some of the requests I’m praying about right now, and I can see a change in my heart as I pray.  For example, I have a person I’m praying would know Jesus.  I know this sounds terrible, but when I first started praying for their salvation, I did it somewhat apathetically.  However, the more I have prayed for this person, the more I want them to know the Lord.  I think in praying for this request, I have begun to gain the heart of God for them.  I have begun to feel the same desire God feels when he looks at the person I care about and wants them to know him.  I’m getting a better idea of how much God wants his children to come to him and how a prayer for salvation is the most important prayer we can pray for a loved one.  God hasn’t answered my request yet, but maybe he wants me to wrestle over it so that I can fully understand the importance and urgency in my request and so that I will be able to celebrate as he does when this person is able to enjoy a full relationship with the Lord.  Just as I want to give my students good grades, God wants to bring all people to salvation.  Unlike me, though, he isn’t overlooking opportunities.  He doesn’t need me to point out a person he has overlooked and ask for their salvation because he sees everyone.  He is perfect and his goals will be accomplished regardless of my prayers, but maybe in my prayers, I can enter into his heart and learn to have the same love for people that he has.

 

Then there are other requests I’ve prayed about where God has shown me his perspective.  Like my students, I have come to him with a belief about how the world or my life ought to be.  I’ve given him my arguments and begged that he make a situation right only to discover that my idea of “right” is not his idea.  These times of wrestling remind me of those conversations with my students where I point out parts of the rubric that they had not considered or overall goals their projects didn’t meet.  The conversations help them see my perspective and understand how I view their projects during the grading process.  My prayers with God sometimes do the same – showing me that how he looks at a situation is not always how I look at it.

 

I don’t pretend to understand exactly how prayer works.  You know from a recent blog that it is actually a struggle for me to figure out why and how and what I should pray, but I love moments when God gives me a tiny glimpse into a piece of his purpose when it comes to prayer, so thank you Philip Yancey and thank you Holy Spirit :).