Holy Wrestling

“God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: “‘I AM has sent me to you.’” Exodus 3:14.

I am starting a powerful Bible Study by Lisa TerKeurst entitled Finding I Am. I can tell it is going to be one of those studies that will require a great deal of emotional investment. Her words exhort me to find the great I AM within my heart, my life, my joys and my disappointments. We all have them, we all have prayed for them and we all have cried over them…disappointments. What do we do when we have invested years and years in a prayer that still remains just a tired muttering of a future resolution? How do find a fresh I AM in a stale situation? God still speaks to us in an attempt to teach us who He is in our current situations and how He can be trusted in spite of a dream temporarily set aside. I love Lisa’s statement of living in the tension of holy wrestling while tears are still on our pillows. She states, ‘I’m desperate, I’m hopeful, but I’m tired.’

Who is desperate, hopeful but tired waiting on their desire to become reality? She states that God wants more than to be all we need. He wants to become all we desire. In considering that statement this morning I was trying to apply it to my life. I believe that God being everything I need is His devotion to me. God being everything I desire is my devotion to Him. There is big difference and I know that He will set up painful circumstances to show Himself faithful in supplying with all things to endure tough times. But when we choose to be with Him, walk with Him and develop intimate fellowship we are creating an ‘I AM’ desire for Him. With all relationships, honesty is essential in discovering the I AM’s of Jesus. Over the course of my life when walking out challenges, God was certainly all I needed, but there are still unresolved areas where God has yet to be the God of what I wanted. Amidst the uncertainty of unanswered prayers, I will stand in certainly of His promise. Life is fickle and full of disappointments but Jesus is constant and the full of every satisfaction. Jesus, the flesh manifestation of the great I AM of God. By getting to know Jesus better, I get to know God and who He is in my heart. I can have courage to still breath hope in unanswered prayers where Jesus invites me to dream big in a big dream.

So today I say, 'I am hopeful, I am confident, I am certain in the great I AM!'