We are meant to "wrestle" with God!

 

 

There's a playful element in the Creator that wants us to fight against what appears to be divine resistance to our dreams. This includes intense questioning of what seems to be the "divine will." Hadewijch, a medieval mystic, called this feisty attitude "noble unfaith" and believed that God values it much more than a faith which is resigned to a difficult situation. Here the story of God fighting in the form of an angel with Jacob has obvious resonances. Because Jacob persevered so intensely, he was granted the blessing for which he sought. But more importantly, God renamed him after this incident, calling him - and his feisty descendents - "Yisrael," which means "God- wrestler."

Bull Elk sparring; Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; January 7, 2013

 

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