Called to Wrestle

Wrestling

For many people in the UK ”wrestling” is not a concept they would automatically associate with their Christian experience.  For some, the only kind of wrestling in which they engage is wrestling to stay awake during a boring sermon, or wrestling to stay gracious through a hymn or song which is not blessing them.  In his letters to the churches, and in his pastoral letters, the apostle Paul occasionally surprises me by the verbs he employs, such as describing a man who “labours” in prayer (Colossians 4:12).

There is only one reference to wrestling in the New Testament.(NT Greek word: palē).  It comes in Paul’s letter to the church at Ephesus and chapter 6.  In that city today you can sit in the splendid historic amphitheatre where, no doubt, the citizens were familiar with wrestling tournaments.  Rules for Greco-Roman wrestling differ from the freestyle wrestling which is more common today.  The aim was to win against your opponent either by managing to pin his shoulders down for a prescribed time, or by accumulating more points than your opponent, gained by throws.  Either win is based upon the ability to throw your opponent off balance.

The word palē is translated in some Bible versions as “struggle”, but it has the sense of a contest, and I prefer the word “wrestle” as, for me, it describes the situation better.  Paul is stating that we are caught up in a situation, not against human enemies but a range of spiritual forces.  While on the surface it may seem as if, at times, we are in a battle with human forces, behind this there is something dark that is contrary to the holiness of God.  In the same passage, Paul speaks about the wiles or schemes of the devil. We have an enemy who craftily plots against us.

It is all too easy to become obsessive about spiritual warfare, but we do need to remain alert to the fact that we have an enemy who intelligently schemes to throw us off balance or to pin us down.  But if we draw on the strength of God, and use the armour he provides (faith, righteousness, our hope in salvation, truth, scripture, and our readiness to share the good news), we are well able to keep standing through the battle.

Personally, it is that sense in which the wrestler seeks to throw his opponent off balance, that has been speaking to me recently.  I originally thought that I would write something about the importance of keeping our focus in mission.  I even began writing about this.  It is all too easy to become distracted, so that the main thing ceases to be the main thing.  We find that other aspects of our Christian and church life take up our resources, so that we are no longer missional with a clear vision of what God is calling us to do.

In our most recent webinar, Gordon Banks and I suggested that perhaps the winter months after Christmas would be a good time to gather the members of our churches and reflect on who we are, how we got here, what we should be doing and where we are going.  Almost certainly the church where you fellowship and worship was established through evangelism.  Those who started the church had a concern that others should hear the good news of Jesus, and have passed on to succeeding generations that same task.  As indeed Jesus did. (How well are we doing with the one thing he asked us to do for him?)  I think it was Donald McGavran who said that the trouble with most Christians and churches is that we are busy doing things we should do but at the expense of the one thing we must do.

There have not been many occasions when I have consciously felt myself “under attack” spiritually.  One such occasion happened when, as a young man, I was in training as an evangelist and earning a living in a small government office.  I had taken ten days holiday from work in order to take part in a mission.  While I was away, some vital documents were found to be missing.  They were urgently needed for a tribunal hearing.  On the day I returned, I was summoned to the bosses office where I was falsely accused of failing in my duties by using the time for which I was employed to do Christian work.  I was only a temporary clerical assistant, and was warned to expect to be made redundant that afternoon when the Area Staff Officer visited.

Paralysed with fear, I made my way back to the General Office, where several colleagues worked.  On my way I felt God was telling me to look at the text at the top of the personal advertisements column in the Daily Telegraph.  I asked a friend if I could look it up in his paper.  When I read it I laughed out loud.  I read, “They will fight against you, but will not prevail against you, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord”.  That afternoon when the Staff Officer came to my office, I was offered a permanent position in the Civil Service and an opportunity of significant advancement!

Sometimes, I have sensed that a church or an aspect of church life has been the object of spiritual hostility.  Such an occasion came when members of the church, where I was at that time the minister, found that an employee in the College they had founded was acting against them.  Business skills were not their strong point and they felt helpless at the mercy of this woman.  At the church prayer meeting that evening I took a reel of cotton and asked people to securely bind my hands with many threads.  I had never done anything like this before.  We then prayed for some time that God would bind the hands of all that opposed the work they had set up as a mission.  I then asked people to cut the threads, which they did.  We prayed that God would set our friends and their ministry free.  Very soon after this. our friends nightmare ended as the woman resigned and immediately left.

The power of prayer is awesome.

At present there are two situations that affect me in which, it feels as if spiritual forces are at work.  I am not at liberty to describe these situations.  Neither immediately relate to our ministry, but they are certainly distracting.  If I am not careful I could be thrown off balance.  One involves a stubborn woman fighting against steps that could make her life easier; the other a man who has assumed unconstitutional authority in a church, causing disruptions.  In both of these separate situations, attempts have been made at the human level to resolve the problems, but the problems persist.

I am not implying that there is something implicitly wrong with the people concerned.  But I wonder if there is some power at work behind these situations.  We should not be surprised to find ourselves in difficult situations occasionally.  Sometimes these are of our own making!  But sometimes they are the result of spiritual schemes intended to throw us off balance or pin us down.

As we stand, will you please stand with us, and pray as you feel led.

Thank you.

Barry

23rd November 2017

From the Diary

It was good to be able to take a few days break last week.  Doreen was able to spend time with her sister  in Kent, while I visited another member of the family in Sussex.

Sunday 26th - Family Service, Goodwood Evangelical Church, Leicester.  Please pray too for the minister and members of Harborough Congregational Church (where I am a member) as they will be on retreat (hopefully advancing!)

Monday 27th -  School Assembly. Give thanks for a good session earlier this week as we considered ‘reconciliation’. The theme for 27th is learning to be wise.

Tuesday 28th  - Please pray for a consultation about rural resource churches.  I am not able to attend but think this is significant.  It is almost entirely Anglican.  I will be working at HMP Gartree.

Thursday 30th - Please pray for a meeting I will be involved in which will call for both wisdom and grace.

Friday 1st December - I will be sharing in a meeting considering the future of a Methodist village church that has seriously declined in members.  Again, pray for wisdom.

Please also give thanks for two donations received recently for Rural Mission Solutions from churches where I have ministered in the past.  Please pray that as our accounts close on 31st December, all costs will be covered so we can start 2018 with an adequate balance in the funds.