(God-Wrestler)

A few weeks ago I went to Applebee’s with my mother and my sister for a bite to eat. It was lunchtime and I decided to go for the boneless chicken wings. I got barbecue of course. I really like their wings so I was excited. The food came out and I went in for the first bite and well I was a little disappointed. The wings were a bit cool, well they weren’t hot, and I guess you can say they were look warm. I was faced with a choice, do I give up the wings and have them sent back or do I just keep chewing and hope for the best.


What would my life be like if I'd given up on God, if I just sent him back like cold wings? I will admit that I am not always hot for God. My relationship with God is much like that I have with others. Some days he is my best friend and we spend lots of time together. Other days I am completely irritated by God and don’t feel like involving him with my issues. Yet I know that God is important to me and I need to step up sometimes to preserve that relationship.

Revelation 3:16
So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.

God declares here that he wants nothing to do with us if were not committed. I don’t want God to spit me out nor do I want to be absent of Gods presence by being cold. So I choose to press on, I choose to work on being into a deeper companionship with him, so I choose to be hot. I must choose this to continue to be with God for he will spit me out or I will have to deny him.

I've noticed that as I have grown deeper in a relationship the ideas of trust and accountability are stronger. When I first started a relationship with him, things were new and exciting, you could say that I was giddy for God. I did have trust issues though and didn’t know what to do if he wasn’t consistently blessing me. Now it’s different though, I know God is there and I can rely on him even when times are tough. This is I becoming more mature in my relationship with him.

Now I could view this as a sign of going through the steps and not truly loving him or maybe just being in love with the idea of him. However the moments we have shared together cement the truth of my love for Him. I know that what I feel is true, I may not have that giddy excitement towards God as I first did but I am now committed and I am now willing to work towards preserving this relationship.

When I first became a Christian my young life leader said in five years I’ll take you to dinner if you are still following Christ. This perplexed me, as I didn’t get why in five years that would merit a dinner. However five years later I don’t know how many times I’ve seen people obsessed with the giddy beginning of a relationship and once things get comfortable and mature they begin to deny it as something that isn’t real anymore. They just give up and pretend that what was there isn’t the same anymore thus they have to move on. The lukewarm settles in and they are forced to cold. They just turn their backs to God again, and when he shows himself to them they don’t know what to do, but look away from his presence.

It’s worth it to fight, to keep chewing, the longer you devote your self the more the blessings come. God knows it’s hard and knows the distractions set forth in our paths. If we could only have the slightest bit of hope towards each other and towards God like the hope that God has in us, we might begin to see true relationships as God intended us to have. Yet we lose hope and run from the fight. We send our wings back to the kitchen. We look away, and that’s why I’m not ashamed to be a god wrestler. The wrestling is I looking into God telling Him I am committed. Then I dive deeper into Christ, and working on staying hot for him.

To finish the wing story, I kept on eating my lukewarm wings, scared that they would just get colder and colder. The funny thing is only the first few were lukewarm. The one’s underneath, the one’s I got to after committing myself were hot and tasty. My meal ended up being completely satisfying giving me a full stomach. If I hadn’t committed and worked towards the hot ones, I would have missed out on a good meal. Don’t miss out on your good meal, keep chewing and God’s presence will begin to bless you even more.