It’s o.k. to get downright angry in
the middle of a crisis and “wrestle with God”.
To claim healing—wholeness, wellness—you must wrestle with God and your
inner man. Then Jacob was left alone; and a Man wrestled with him until the
breaking of the day (Genesis 32:24).
Jacob was going through troubled
waters in his soul. He got the gumption
to leave his father-in-law’s house after twenty years of unfair treatment and
take his entire family and property across kilometers of desert land back to
his own homeland. This return would also
mean having to meet his worst fear: His twin brother, whom he deceived and took
his birthright, was waiting for him with 400 ‘men’ ready to pay him back in revenge
for the pain he laid on Esau (Read Genesis 27:30-45).
So Jacob was sorely troubled in his
soul. Do you feel like that? There is something troubling the waters of
your soul. The Bible promises us in
Psalm 23: 2b: He leads me beside the still waters. But you ask: “If I am lead
by the still waters, then why am I not calm, relaxed, feeling good—at peace?” It’s because You lust and do not have. You
murder and covet, and cannot obtain. You
fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not
receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures (James
4:2-3).
John Travis, M.D., in his The Wellness Workbook, identifies key
areas where we maintain our health. From
personal experience, I have added others to list 14 benchmarks of health. I introduced this series—Wellness Series—in the
previous three blogs, “I Want to be Whole!” (#53), “Is the Cross Relevant
Today?” (#54), and “Harness Christ’s Resurrection Power!” (#55). Today we are
tackling Health is knowing what your real needs are and how to get them met1.
For the most part, women internalize
their troubled souls and become depressed.
Men, on the other hand, express their stress outwardly through sports,
including wrestling. No matter how we decide
to wade through our waters, we must get right with God—that means pouring out
all the bad stuff we feel He’s doing to us.
Argue with God, and shout and have tantrums over how unfair “my life
is”. Do you want to accuse God that it’s
His fault why you’re in this turmoil in the first place?
Right now, get alone into a quiet
place, and tell God all that is
troubling you. And tell Him what’s real in your heart. God cannot be mocked (Galatians 6:7). He knows what’s happening to you before you
even utter one word, but the only way to heal and is to talk to God and lay down all your burdens at His feet, because He cares
for you (1 Peter 5:7).
Tell God your needs and ask Him to
show you the way to get them met.
Don’t sit down and fret over things you
can control. Take a step and push boldly to that which
gives you peace. “Well, Lord, I need money for …. I need a this or a that. I
need for my . . . to love me. I need for my children to get back on tract. I need …. Examine your needs. Are they in line with God’s will and plan for
your life; or are you asking for things that satisfy your pleasures?
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| "Daily Prayer" by Kevin "WAK" Williams |
We can imagine what Jacob wrestled
with: “My Lord, I deceived my brother and took his birthright. My mother put me up to it. But I can’t blame her. I also wanted it so that I’d inherit my
father’s blessing and property. I fled
from home. But then I was tricked by my
uncle into marrying a woman I didn’t love.
I stayed with his first daughter, but was deceived again by him after
marrying his second daughter. Now Esau is out to kill me. I hope he accepts my
gifts and forgives me. I need to change my character so that I
will stop all this pain! Bingo!
That’s what gets God’s attention.
Change the way you do things to get
what you want and humble yourself and tell God what it is you truly need: a change in the way you think—how you jealous
what others have and how they are succeeding.
Get on your knees and ask God, “What
can I do to increase Your Kingdom with the talent(s) You’ve given me?”
When you seek FIRST the Kingdom of God
and His righteousness, He will give you everything you need to complete your
God-given assignment on earth (Matthew 6:33).
And He will give it to you exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask
or think, according to the power that works in us (Ephesians
3:20). What power is that? Resurrection
power! When you give to do the
Lord’s good will, it will be given back to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken
together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it
will be measured back to you (Luke 6:38).
How much are you giving to the Lord?
Allow
the Lord to make you to lie down in green pastures and to restore your soul (Read Psalm
23).
He will show you the way to get your needs met if only you will listen. He talks to His children in various
ways. Get personal with God. Wrestle with God.
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| "Prayer Warrior" (www.pinterest.com) |
© 2020 by Patience Osei-Anyamesem. All
rights reserved. Published by Take My
Hand Inspirations Mission. No part of
this publication may be reproduced, distributed, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy,
recording, or any other—without the prior written permission of the
publisher. The only exception is brief
quotations in printed reviews or other noncommercial uses permitted by
copyright law.
Unless otherwise
stated, all scripture quotations are from The New King James Version. Copyright
© 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by
permission. All rights reserved.
1. Travis, J. (1977). The Wellness Workbook. Mill Valley, CA, USA: Wellness Resource
Center.
Take My Hand Inspirations
