An Overcoming Faith
We moved house this week, and moving house is not for the faint-hearted. On the morning I was due to preach I smashed something in the garage, got to church, dropped my notes, dropped a bottle, dropped everything. A man walking his dog across the road said, you're having a bad morning, aren't you. And I thought, mate, you don't even know me. But that is life sometimes.
Here is the thing. Life is going to be filled with challenges, but God has called us to be overcomers. Those problems are not meant to be the thing that defines your life. They are meant to be the thing that transforms it.
In Genesis 32 Jacob sends his family and everything he owns across the ford of the Jabbok, and Jacob is left alone. Every man said amen at that point. Some time alone in the man cave. But a man wrestled with him till daybreak, and when he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched. Let me go, the man said, for it is daybreak. Jacob replied, I will not let you go unless you bless me. Then the man said, your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome (Genesis 32:22-28). Jacob is in fear, in chaos, in trouble. And yet he holds tight to God, and he becomes an overcomer. That is the promise for us too.
It is the nature of life that no sooner has one problem been resolved than the next one pops up. Life can feel like an endless game of whack-a-mole. You remember that old arcade game, the moles popping out of the holes and you with a hammer trying to knock them back down. At first it is quite achievable. Got that one, dealt with that one. Then the game speeds up, and before you know it you are waving the hammer wildly in the air. The moles overtake you and you think, I give up.
Friend, if you are moving forward in what God has for you, you will encounter challenges. But those problems are not there to contain you. They are there to propel you and to promote you. We want a holiday from our problems. But your problem is your passport. You use a passport to move territory, and your problem is a passport into the new territory God has for you. Jacob's problems became part of his promotion.
So we have to get bigger than our problems. It sounds good, doesn't it, but how do you actually do it? You get a bigger view of who God is. Nothing is bigger than Him. Everyone born of God overcomes the world, and this is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith (1 John 5:4).
The Psalmist knew this. He wrote, the cords of death entangled me, I was overcome by trouble and sorrow. Then I called on the name of the Lord (Psalm 116:3-4). And then comes the line I cannot get away from: I believed, therefore I said (Psalm 116:10). Here is a man overcome who learns to overcome. So let me ask you what I have been asking myself. Are we overcome, or do we overcome? The Spirit of Christ in us is the overcoming spirit.
When my son Will was three he got very sick. The doctor said it was just a virus, give him fluids and rest. He got worse. Three weeks later he could not pull himself up on a table, this boy who normally scooted around doing everything. I took him back and the doctor said, I think he has Guillain-Barré. It causes paralysis. Sometimes it is fatal. Go straight to hospital. Those are words no parent ever wants to hear. Fear gripped my throat. My voice was stuck.
On the way I called some intercessors and asked them to pray. And then prayer kicked in. The Holy Spirit reminded me of a time when I was pregnant, praying in my lounge with Will moving around inside me, and the Lord gave me a picture of him standing tall and confident with a sword in his hand. And I thought, he is going to be okay. My faith got bigger than my problem, and my throat unlocked, and I could pray.
Within two hours of that prayer starting Will turned a corner. He went from not being able to lift himself up to finding a trike in the hospital and riding it up and down the corridor. The tests confirmed the diagnosis, and then the doctor looked at the scan, looked at Will, and said, is this Will? He could not believe the scan matched the patient. This is impossible, he said, he should not be able to move. The problem got smaller and God got bigger.
We have authority to overcome all the power of the enemy (Luke 10:19). Not a bit of it. Not some of his schemes. All of it. Which means God has not handed you a silly plastic hammer. He has equipped you with a sword, the sword of the Word of God, and you can look at that mole and cut off its head. The devil is not staring you in the face. He is under your feet.
Now here is the part that changes everything. Jacob's struggle did not begin that night. It started in the womb, wrestling with his twin to come out first, and it never let up. And notice this, God always turns up in the way you can relate to. He came to Abraham as a traveller and to Joshua the general as a soldier. He comes to Jacob the struggler as a wrestler.
And God asks him, what is your name. Which seems random, because surely He knows. But the last time Jacob answered that question he lied. He said he was Esau, so he could steal a blessing that was not his, because he was relying on himself instead of a God who provides. This time he tells the truth. And when we get honest, God can change us. Jacob means grasps at the heel. Israel means prevails with God. Overcomer. That is our DNA too, because we are a chosen people, a holy priesthood (1 Peter 2:9).
Jacob walked away from that night with a limp. Sometimes your challenge will cripple you. But the crippling will crown you. He was transformed in a way he never would have been had he not faced that fight. When you persevere in adversity, God crowns you in a way you could not otherwise have received (Revelation 3:21).
So put down the hammer. Some of us are still swinging it, still trying to figure it out our own way. Put it down. Jacob had to surrender everything he had been managing alone before God could hand him the sword. Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord (Zechariah 4:6). God trusts His power to those who have surrendered to Him.
And for those of you wrestling right now, hear this. Sometimes God solves problems differently to how we think He should. If it did not resolve the way you wanted, He is still at work through it and in you. He is good. He is faithful. He will bring you through.
Faith is not the absence of problems or the absence of difficulty. Faith is the belief that with God, for God, and by the power of God, you can keep going and come out the other side.
When I was eighteen I was praying and God gave me a picture. I had a sword in my hand and in front of me was a big dense thicket with no way through. I started slashing at it, cutting a narrow path. And I said, Lord, why am I doing this? He said, look behind you. I turned around and saw a whole group of people walking on the path I had cut.
Overcomers never quit. Overcomers pick up their sword. Overcomers forge a way that others will walk. Your fear will turn to prayer, your worry will turn to prophecy, your panic will turn to peace, and your trial will become your testimony. So take heart, friend. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart, He has overcome the world (John 16:33).
