My oldest son's name is Jacob, which means in Hebrew, "he grasps the heel." Jacob was the son of Isaac in the Old Testament, the brother of Esau, who wrestled with God in Genesis 32, at which point God changed his name to Israel, which means "he struggles with God." It's interesting to me that Israel's namesake is famous for having it out with God in an all-night wrestling match. The Bible is full of these kinds of stories, of people presumably loved and favored by God who fight with him: Job is a notable example; many of David's psalms are poetic wrestling matches; Jeremiah decides to quit on God at one point, and finds himself caught between his anger at God and the drive he feels within him to do God's will; not to mention the "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" question from Jesus himself (which, by the way, is Jesus quoting from Psalm 22).
Even though this is common in the Bible, I don't think many people today feel that it is appropriate to fight with God. As in other dysfunctional relationships, our tendency is to stuff it. We're angry at our circumstances, we perceive that God is late to the rescue, we're convinced that God blew it here or there. Yet our Sunday worship is typically rosy...and typically dishonest. Or we avoid God altogether. Somehow we've come to believe that this is how God prefers to be honored, or perhaps we're just too afraid of him to say what we really think.
I'm convinced that one of the best things some of us could do is have a big fight with God. I feel quite sure God can take it. One of my favorite God fights on film is from Forrest Gump, in which Captain Dan climbs the mast of his boat during a storm and yells at God through the wind and rain. Like Captain Dan, we somehow find on the other side of the fight that God isn't as against us as we thought, and we find God's benevolence after--perhaps only after--we've gotten a few things off our chest.
Passive-aggressive relationships with God don't work. Shake your fist in the air and get it over with. Fights with God tend to be win-win.
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