Lent 17: Wrestling

"So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak." Genesis 32: 24

Lent is a time of wrestling.

In Lent we often choose to give something up or take something on as a challenge - as a way of teaching ourselves something, or allowing God to teach us something.

I think Christians can sometimes end up with the impression (or give the impression) that life with God, when done right, should be a piece of cake.  Phrases like, "All you have to do is ask God and..." or "Just pray and...."  are used really rather often.  The truth behind these statements is that God is able and we should be giving over the power to God rather than trying to do everything ourselves.  The lie behind them is the suggestion that it will, or should, be easy.  It sometimes is, and usually isn't, in my experience.

As Jesus wrestled in the desert - with himself, with the devil, with temptation - in Lent we try to use the act of giving something up or taking something on to shift our reliance on one thing back onto God - e.g. you recognise that you always eat chocolate or go on Facebook when you are feeling low, rather than looking to God for support and sustenance.  Or you daydream about certain scenarios when things get tough in order to escape from reality.

These things we turn to are, in a way, addictions.  We feel we cannot live without them, or have learned to rely upon them.  Why would giving up an addiction be anything other than a struggle?  And there won't just be one of these to overcome in a Christian's lifetime.

Just like when someone comes off a drug addiction and "goes cold turkey" - they have to wrestle with themselves physically, mentally and emotionally for a long period of time and often for the rest of their lives - coming off any addiction, whether chemical, emotional or experiential, will usually be very tough.

There is a model of learning called The Concious Competence model.  This suggests that there are four phases of learning to do something differently:
Unconscious incompetence - when we do something without realising we do it
Conscious incompetence - when we realise we do something but are incapable of doing it otherwise
Conscious competence - when we can do it differently when we think about it
Unconscious competence - when we do something differently without having to think about it 
I find this model very helpful because the phases of conscious incompetence and conscious competence are really tough, but there is the hope that, with practice, the new way of doing things will become natural and unconscious.  However hard the learning is, an easier time will come.

If Lent is a time of facing up to our misplaced reliance, then it will in places feel like wrestling with ourselves and with God.  Emotions and questions will come up which we may have never experienced before, and it might be frustrating and exhausting.  The hope is, though, that through this struggle new life and a new way of being will be born in the resurrected Christ and in us.