The struggles of life

THE STRUGGLES OF LIFE

Life holds many struggles for us and indeed life itself is a struggle, right from the start; we struggle to be born into this world, and then we struggle to overcome the many obstacles to survival and security and satisfaction. There are the natural or outer struggles that we all have to deal with that belong to the outward circumstances of our lives and they are always in front of us every day. And there are the spiritual or inner life struggles that challenge us to grow in faith and trust in God. Our life is a journey in which we learn to know the difference between the outward natural struggles and the inner spiritual struggles, and we learn to choose which are the struggles worth having and which are not. 

Many of the stories in the Bible in the Old Testament were preparing us for the understanding of the New Testament truth of having both the natural and the spiritual natures within us and how spiritual transformation by the work of the Holy Spirit is from the natural self that started with Adam into the Spiritual self that was given to us through Jesus – That is the message of the Gospel – Christ dwelling in our hearts by faith.

Our natural self struggles with our spiritual self because both of these ‘selves’ have different desires.
Galatians 5:17 the good things we want to do when the Spirit has his way with us are just the opposite of our natural desires. These two forces within us are constantly fighting each other to win control over us, and our wishes are never free from their pressures.

One of these stories that is like a parable of the two selves within, the natural and the spiritual starts in Genesis chapter 25 with a struggle between twin boys, Jacob and Esau, who even at their birth appeared struggling to see who would be the first one to arrive into this world. The Bible says ‘First the natural and then that which is spiritual’ (1Corinthians 15:46). Esau was the first of the boys to be born but at the time of birth Jacob could be seen grasping on to Esau’s heel, as if to say ‘outa my way, I want to be first’. These boys were the sons of Isaac, who was the son Abraham, the father of the Hebrew Nation. Abraham was told by God that his descendants would inherit the Land of Canaan, the Promised land. 
So as tradition had it in those days the firstborn son of Isaac received that Patriarchal blessing, which was revered as the highest of spiritual blessings. Esau was in line for he, and his descendants, to inherit all the Promises given to Abraham, and which is passed on down to us spiritually through Jesus. This inheritance was to be imparted at the end of Isaac’s life and when it was time to pass it on, and while Esau was out hunting at the time, Jacob cheated his blind Father and older brother by dressing in Esau’s clothes in order to smell and feel like his older brother and so fool Isaac into thinking that Jacob was his firstborn son Esau. When Isaac reached out to lay his hands on Jacob to impart the spiritual blessing he thought it was Esau, and this blessing could never be reversed. 

However Esau and Jacob had two very different longings in life. Esau was a man of the natural, the outdoors, who loved to hunt and to acquire the things of this world, and that is what he struggled for, while Jacob had a heart after God and longed to achieve the spiritual blessings of Abraham and that is what he struggled for. In fact, Jacob probably should not have felt too guilty because one day when they were younger, Jacob had even negotiated for Esau to swap his firstborn Patriarchal blessing for some measly red soup of Jacob’s that Esau couldn’t take his eyes off. Their future life choices had already been embedded in their hearts.

But when Esau finally found out that Jacob had actually received the blessing in the way that he did, he was furious and set out to kill him, so Jacob’s next struggle was to escape the wrath of Esau. Isaac stepped in and reassured Jacob that it would all be okay, and sent Jacob away, telling him to head for Haran to visit his Uncle Laban who had two daughters, Rachel and Leah. Soon into the journey he stopped at a place called Bethel and rested. Despite the conniving struggle of Jacob to acquire the blessing God honoured Jacob’s longing heart for that spiritual blessing in a vision where The Lord speaks over him and confirms the blessing of Abraham to him with all of the promises of being a father to all of the Jewish nations. 
Jacob went through further struggles to obtain his two wives Leah and Rachel and to ultimately father the twelve tribes of Israel. 
Much later in his life on his journey back to the region of his inheritance with his wives and families and servants and cattle, his final struggle was his wrestle with God, who appeared in the form of the Angel of The Lord. Jacob told God that he would not let him go nor cease the struggle till God blessed him. Such was his longing for God’s blessing and his holding on that God finished the bout by touching Jacob’s hip and putting it out of its socket, leaving Jacob with a permanent limp. God then renamed Jacob ‘Israel’ which means ‘having power with God and struggling with God and prevailing’. God used those words over Jacob. 

When we compare the struggles of Jacob and Esau we see those two longings struggling within us. They represent the two sides of us, our Jacob self and our Esau self. They each wanted different types of blessings. Esau reached out eagerly to struggle for worldly blessing to fill his life while Jacob reached out eagerly to struggle for spiritual blessing to fill his life. 

OUTER STRUGGLES
Everybody has to deal with the outer struggles of life, and for most people this is the only struggle that counts because it mostly deals with the material things of life that they need and want. These things include physical health and well-being, financial security, leisure and recreation and aspirational goals of personal achievement. We all struggle for many of these things, but they are not our highest order of struggle.

EXPECTATIONS 
Most people try hard and struggle against the challenges to achieve results and they expect to get them and are pleased when they do. They expect challenges and competition and adjust their goals and expectations as they go. We all learn how to manage the world’s systems and some do better than others. Some prosper for the right reasons and others are greedy and still prosper but for the wrong reasons.
In this world of outward struggle there are always disappointments and frustrations and we do our best to learn to live with them. 

These things are all part of the outer struggle of the circumstances of this world and are different to the inner struggle of the spirit. We all have both of these struggles waiting for us to engage with, but most people ignore the inner struggle of the spiritual life that we have been given to live and think that everything depends upon the management of the outer struggle of life, to have what we need or want or demand. 

But the Bible tells us that we have both an outer and an inner struggle, in a natural outer life and in an inner spiritual life. As we read before; ‘These two forces within us are constantly fighting each other to win control over us, and our wishes are never free from their pressures (Galatians 5:17)’.

By the grace of God we come to a time when the Esau nature in us to win the outward struggle yields to the Jacob nature in us to win the inner spiritual struggle.
There are stories in the Bible of this change happening in the lives of people who were challenged to let go of the old life and to take on the new. The parable of the prodigal son shows us how a young man who had given himself to the longing for the things of this world would come to the end of himself and humbly decide to return to his father. 

There is also the story of Saul the Pharisee who was once arrogantly proud of his religious credentials and who was cruelly persecuting the followers of Jesus when he was stopped in his tracks by a blinding light. And he saw a vision of Jesus who spoke to him with words that penetrated his heart, turning his life around to fully follow him.  

And when Jacob struggled with God and had his hip joint put out Jacob’s heart was filled not only with blessing but with a desire to walk with God, and so he did walk with God, and ended up walking with a limp. The limp reminded him that every step he took showed him his own human weakness and his dependence upon God’s strength, and it reminded him of his commitment to go through any struggle to receive the blessing of God in his life, over and above any blessing that the world could offer. 
That is a shadow of the longing of The Holy Spirit to give us that desire to struggle for the blessing of living out from the inner life of Jesus within us. The Holy Spirit shows us that we also walk with the limp of weakness, our humanity, and we struggle to hold on to God as our strength. The struggle to hold on to God also involves the letting go of things of the world. It is hard to hold on to two things at once, like holding on to God and holding on to resentment and other harmful attitudes in the heart. We end of letting go of one or the other.

An excerpt from ‘The Problem of Pain’ by C.S. Lewis

My own experience is something like this. I am progressing along the path of life in my ordinary contentedly fallen and godless condition, absorbed in a merry meeting with my friends for the morrow or a bit of work that tickles my vanity today, a holiday or a new book, when suddenly a stab of abdominal pain that threatens serious disease, or a headline in the newspapers that threatens us all with destruction, sends this whole pack of cards tumbling down. At first I am overwhelmed, and all my little happiness’s look like broken toys. Then, slowly and reluctantly, bit by bit, I try to bring myself into the frame of mind that I should be in at all times. I remind myself that all these toys were never intended to possess my heart, that my true good is in another world and my only real treasure is Christ. And perhaps, by God's grace, I succeed, and for a day or two become a creature consciously dependent on God and drawing its strength from the right sources. But the moment the threat is withdrawn, my whole nature leaps back to the toys: I am even anxious, God forgive me, to banish from my mind the only thing that supported me under the threat because it is now associated with the misery of those few days. Thus the terrible necessity of tribulation is only too clear. God has had me for but forty-eight hours and then only by dint of taking everything else away from me. Let Him but sheathe that sword for a moment and I behave like a puppy when the hated bath is over. I shake myself as dry as I can and race off to reacquire my comfortable dirtiness, if not in the nearest manure heap, at least in the nearest flower bed. And that is why tribulations cannot cease until God either sees us remade or sees that our remaking is now hopeless.

So in the world of the outer struggle against the tribulations of this present time of global pandemic, where everything has changed everywhere for everybody at the same time, we are seeing an increase of fear and anxiety in many people concerning the necessary things of life; safety and security and wellbeing. 
This is changing the nature of peoples’ expectations. What and who do people trust?
This brings people to a point of choosing what kind of struggle to take on, and that choice is all about what to hold on to and what to let go of.
Esau’s struggle was to conquer life by holding on to his own strength and not letting go of the things of the world that end up bringing so much stress and anxiety.
The Bible calls Esau a ‘profane’ man which means not having regard to the things of God and it warns us not to go the way of Esau.
Hebrews 12:16 Watch out that no one becomes careless about God as Esau did: he traded his blessing as the oldest son for the pleasure of a single meal

When people are not able to let go of things or are deprived of things they want or demand to have, it brings resentment, and we are seeing much of this in these days in which we live and the reaction is to blame someone. 
Being able to let go of things willingly, brings freedom and peace and the response is to thank someone.
Jacob knew that life was a struggle anyway so why not let holding on to God be the struggle of his life. He learned to be able to let go of anything but never to let go of God.

Christianity is not about avoiding a struggling life; it’s about avoiding a wasted life. 
It will mean holding on to God in times of uncertainty, and times of difficulty, but it also means holding on to a whole lot of faith and a whole lot of hope. We don’t try to make the Esau in us become polite and caring and never get resentful or angry – Esau has to get out of the way for Jacob. It was Jacob who stood toe to toe with God and understood that his weakness was the welcome sign for the strength of God to possess his heart and mind.
If our hope is the same as the hope that the world has, then there is no basis for anyone in the world to ask us the reason for the hope we have.
1Peter 3:15 But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.
Holding on to God is not a passive waiting around for something to happen but it is holding on to a loving Jesus toe to toe, with a full hope and expectation of God bringing his loving goodness into our lives.

Romans 15:13 Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.