Recently the Lord showed me a picture of Him and me seated at a table across from each other. He smiled as He placed His elbow on the table, arm propped forward, fingers spread. He said, “Arm wrestle Me.”
In shock, I said, “I don’t want to wrestle You. You’ll win!” His eyes danced with merriment. “That’s not the point. Arm wrestle Me.” So I placed my elbow on the table and gripped Jesus’ hand. When I did, He exerted only a small amount of His strength. I pushed against Him, but I knew that the moment He applied all the strength of His arm, I’d go down in a flash.
As we wrestled against each other’s grips, warmth saturated my hand from the heat in His. Love radiated from His eyes, and suddenly I knew—the point of this encounter wasn’t to beat God or convince Him of anything. The point was to be in a relationship with Him, one that was intimate and personal, and to know the power of His strength.
Love burst forth in my heart for Him and all I wanted was to be in His arms. In that moment, our touch ceased to be competitive and became that of Lovers. I swept my thumb against His skin in an intimate caress.
Instantly, He leveled my arm as the fire in His eyes changed to that of fervent desire. He stood and walked around that table, pulling me right into the cradle of tenderness against His chest and the safety of His arms.
“Now when He saw that He did not prevail against him, He touched the socket of his hip…” Genesis 32:25
In His relationship with us, God is a gentleman. He will be a gentleman even when it means that it looks like we’re stronger than Him. He’ll let us 'defeat' Him, let us do things our way, and even let us go about boasting that we're tougher than Him. He’ll stand and watch as we walk up to the neighborhood bully or the biggest thug on the block and brag about how strong and skilled we are, about how we’ve even beat God. Then Jesus watches soberly as the thug takes us down.
Have you been there? Has life hit you in the face? Have circumstances flattened you on the back? Are the wounds and bruises still aching on the inside of you? Rest assured: God isn’t cruel. He examines our hearts and sees what we've been trusting in, outside of Him. He’s waiting for us to come back to Him and ask Him to defeat our enemies for us. But will we? Would you ask someone you believe to be weaker than you to stand up for you? Doubtful.
But then God murmurs again, “Arm wrestle Me.” Anger flares, and we demand, “Why? So you can beat me when I’m down?” God says, “Arm wrestle Me.” So we do, in the hope that we’re still stronger than somebody.
And this time He doesn’t let us win.
In our pride, we think, “It’s just because I’m so weak. I’ve been beaten up by life. I need to recover.” So God lets us regain our strength. In fact, He fosters it. He nurtures us and feeds us, shelters us and medicates us. Then He says again, “Arm wrestle Me.” So we do. This time, He lets us almost beat Him. We use all our strength—every ounce of it. Then He takes us down.
He does this over and over and over again. Why? Because every good trainer knows that muscles have to be conditioned to gain strength. They have to be exercised and manipulated and massaged. Then God says, “Arm wrestle Me.” It’s the final test. He knows it’s time. Time for us to realize just how strong He is.
We’re strong now too. We know it. We can feel the force of our strength. In fact, we’ve been wrestling some smaller bullies and taking them down. But there’s still that big thug. Are we strong enough to stand up to him and not get taken down? So we take God’s challenge. We exert all our strength. We pour out sweat and blood and suddenly it dawns on us: As we’re sweating and struggling and intensely fighting Him—He’s just playing with us.
His eyes begin dancing once again. He starts laughing, rejoicing, delighting in our health and strength. Wonder grows in our heart, spills out from our lips. “Jesus…Jesus…You’re that strong?”
“Yes, Child. Yes, I’m that strong. And now—I will defeat your enemy for you. Do you want Me to?”
Our whole heart expands. We breathe the air of sudden, amazing freedom. “Yes, Daddy! Yes! I know how strong You are now. I know that if I try on my own again, that thug will call all his cronies and they’ll gang up on me and blindside me. But they can’t do that to You. That thug will go down in an instant when You take him on. Yes, Daddy, be my Defender, my Bodyguard, my Lifesaver, and my Friend!”
And God does what He’s always promised to do: He takes down the villain, the bad guy, the tormenting bully in our story. And we realize in that moment, with the thug thrashing in death throes on the floor, that we need never be afraid again.
Hallelujah! Our God is that strong!!!
“The Lord is the strength of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid?” Psalm 27:1
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