Wrestling with God Over Your Faith

Life doesn’t always fit into a neat box. It can be beautiful, funny, whimsical, and positively delightful. However, life can also be messy, painful, distressing, and confusing. It takes wisdom to navigate the complexity of life well because it can all be a little bewildering and overwhelming at times and we can find ourselves wrestling with God.

You’re not alone in wrestling with God.

If you’ve walked with God long enough, you will know that there are moments or even seasons of wrestling with God over your faith, over what you know to be true about Him. There may even be seasons where your faith feels barren, or it feels like God is silent and not responding to your cries. The lives of the saints aren’t easy or straightforward, even when their faith compels them to continue serving God and others amid their trials.

The apostle Paul wrote about a “thorn” that tormented him to keep him from being conceited about the amazing revelations he’d received from God. We don’t know exactly what that thorn was, but Paul pleaded with God three times to remove it from him, but the Lord’s response was, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9, NIV). Paul had to bear up under that thorn and trust in God’s sufficient grace to carry him through.

The eleventh chapter of the letter of Hebrews lists many people of faith who endured extremely difficult circumstances. As we read the Bible, from places like the Psalms we come to understand that these patient sufferers would have uttered prayers such as this Psalm which reads:

How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me? – Psalm 13:1-2, NIV

In other words, they were bold and wrestled with God over what they were experiencing. The language of faith is complex, as it allows us to cry out to God, to pour out our feelings of abandonment by Him, and to ask Him to fulfill His many promises to us. We can bring our anguish, our shame, our disappointments, our anger and frustrations before the Lord, and work things out with Him.

Mother Teresa, the ethnic Albanian Roman Catholic nun who dedicated her life to the poor, sick, and dying in India, experienced seasons of barrenness in her spiritual life. In one letter that she wrote, she said, “Jesus has a very special love for you. As for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great that I look and do not see, listen and do not hear.” Such a dark night of the soul can be a challenge, but it is a challenge that one can bring before God.

Areas where people wrestle spiritually.

Your walk with God doesn’t look exactly like the next person’s. You have unique sensitivities and ways you look at the world. As a result, you may not be bothered by something that drives your neighbor up the wall, and vice versa. Some areas where people will often wrestle with God include the following:

Disappointment with God.

This is when God doesn’t seem to do what you thought He would or should have done.

Being hurt by other people, especially believers.

Being hurt by the church is one major reason why people may struggle with God and their faith. Believers are meant to represent God in the world, but they often fail miserably at their calling to be God’s chosen people in the world (1 Peter 2:9-12).

Seeing brokenness in the world.

When we are confronted by injustice, destruction, unrelenting exploitation, and corruption in the world, that can raise questions about God’s goodness and His involvement in our world. When you see brokenness in yourself, that can bring about despair and wondering what purposes and plans God has for you as well.

When we’re resisting Him.

God doesn’t force Himself on us – He gives us a choice between the path of life and the path of death (Genesis 2:16-17; Deuteronomy 30:19; Joshua 24:14-15; Matthew 7:13-14; John 3:16-21). We often choose the path that leads to death, and we can wrestle with God as we resist His perfect will for us.

How to wrestle well with God.

Wrestling is a contact sport. You can’t do it remotely or ask someone else to take your spot and do it for you. This matters immensely when we’re talking about wrestling with God. You have to get up close and personal with Him.

Come to Jesus Christ, and wrestle with Him to understand what He is about and how to make sense of this world (Matthew 11:28-30). That means listening to His words, digging into them, and trying your hardest to make sense of them.

Sometimes, that wrestling with God happens alongside others. Whether through reading the books of Christians who have struggled with their faith, or talking with them in your community, you can learn a lot for your journey. It’s important to be honest with yourself and others about your struggles.

Reach out to Allen Christian Counseling today to meet with a Christian counselor in Allen, Texas if you’re wrestling with God over your faith.