Wrestling

My son, Matthew, explained why he chose to wrestle instead of play basketball by quoting something he read on a t-shirt.

“If I wanted to play an easy sport, I would have joined basketball.”

Three ninety-second rounds are enough to cause a dad to suffer a heart attack. I scream encouragement to my son even though I have no idea what to say. I don’t know anything about wrestling. But, I’m his dad and I have to say something!

The intensity of those four-and-a-half minutes are brutal. Matthew uses all of his strength in giant bursts as he attempts to subdue his opponent. Sometimes he prevails. Sometimes he doesn’t. But, it seems like he has run a marathon in that brief period of time.

The emotional intensity is brutal on him. Not only does he expend all of his physical strength, but all of his emotional strength as well. A win makes him jubilant. A loss crushes him. It tests his courage in ways I couldn’t have imagined.

Scripture tells us that we wrestle against spiritual powers. I think I understand better what Paul was telling us. Most of life is a day-in and day-out ritual of life. But, there are those crisis times that cause us to use intense spiritual and emotional strength in order to prevail. At times, life is a wrestling match. We are, from time-to-time, tested against an enemy that wishes to pin us on our backs so that we compromise what we know is right and good.

Sometimes we win because we wrestle with God’s strength and power. Sometimes we lose because we don’t. But each time, just like Matthew, we learn and we go on to the next match.