Meyer Minute for January 28
“Perfect
love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18), but we won’t experience that fully until
the other side. On this side of heaven everyone, God’s people included, have
fears. The “Faith and Film Festival” at Concordia Seminary includes a short
film, “Ten Meter Tower.” You see normal people facing the fear of jumping into
a swimming pool from a ten-meter tower, almost 33 feet high. Seeing normal
people, they weren’t divers, struggle with an inconsequential fear invites us
to reflect. How do I wrestle with my fears?
The
word “fear” isn’t used in Genesis 32:22-32 when Jacob wrestles with an unnamed
“man,” but who wouldn’t be afraid when you’re suddenly attacked? And we are
attacked by all sorts of scary things, Covid-19, harmful moods, financial
problems, changes in relationships, and on and on until the final fearful
thing, death. “And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. When
the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket,
and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said,
‘Let me go, for the day has broken.’ But Jacob said, ‘I will not let you go
unless you bless me.’ And he said to him, ‘What is your name?’ And he said,
‘Jacob.’ Then he said, ‘Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel,
for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.’”
God
lowers Himself to engage a human being, and not engage through conversation but
to pull a man into struggle. Is God in the fearful things you’re struggling
with? In your struggles, are you really wrestling with God? Whether your
struggle traces back to sinful mistakes you’ve made, to the devil, or to God
Himself, God certainly is in your fearful struggle, God for you, not against
you, with you in His suffering and finally triumphant Son (Romans 8:31-32).
Whatever you’re wrestling with, hang on to God and quote Jacob repeatedly, “I
will not let you go unless you bless me.”
When
“we cannot understand why we have to keep on waiting, why God does not take
away the pain and suffering, it is then—yes, especially then—that God’s
baptismal pledge to us holds true: his promise to be with us and to go with us.
His promise gives strength to hold up….” (Oswald Bayer, “In Trouble and in Good
Heart,” a sermon by Oswald Bayer).
From Dr. Dale Meyer's Facebook page
