Upfront and transparent, this post feels unique. As many of us do, when December 31st turns into January 1, I become very reflective. Wow…2018! I have a close friend who, for the first 4 months of 2018, when he and I would see each other, we would say, “2018…Let’s get weird!”. This was happening 3-4 times a week. And weird doesn’t even begin to describe this reflection. Weird doesn’t begin to describe how things have changed. The only thing I can do to come close to describing 2018 is to place the word “everything” in front of the word “weird”. Everything weird! I know my wife and others will try to correct the grammar of that statement, but let me explain. Everything isn’t weird now. Even in the moments of chaos and the moments of change, I could understand how weird it was in the span of life. But in those moments it didn’t seem weird.

Let's get weird for a moment.

After now 37 years of growing up in ministry and church, The Lord has graciously taken me and a few others on a road discovering what matters most. Many would tell you not to wrap up your identity and your calling because then you can’t balance both. I kind of agree. but when your calling (serving the King of kings) is so tightly connected to your identity (child of the King), life becomes an overlapping hybrid of childlike service. Thus when I say “a road discovering what matters most”, that means the Lord in 2018 deconstructed everything. I mean everything.

I could sense a struggle taking place in my spirit in November of 2017. I didn’t know what was going on, but I said to many close friends things like “I feel like my spirit is in overdrive.” Or I said to Anne last December “I just want my life to matter.” Why was it that I felt unrest in my spirit? Why did I feel like my life was at a crossroads of sorts?

As 2018 opened up, ministry became as tough as it has ever been - and that was on the heels of praying and looking for a renewal in my own heart and awakening in the city of Memphis. As each week passed into the new year, 2 great struggles began to take place. One was a struggle for everything I knew of church. This was an ugly fight that brought the worst of out me. The other was a struggle with God - a new arena that I had never experienced with the Lord. A wrestling match. Sure, I had wrestled with God about certain decisions at times in the past, but this match was winner take all. EVERYTHING seemed to be on the line. Now I am by no means Jacob, but the Lord has taught me a lot through this passage:

Genesis 32

22 The same night he arose and took his two wives, his two female servants, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23 He took them and sent them across the stream, and everything else that he had. 24 And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. 25 When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob's hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. 26 Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” 27 And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” 28 Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.”

The thing that sticks out is that Jacob took all of his family and everything he had. EVERYTHING. Everything/ everyone gets a new name, not just Jacob. Don’t believe me? 31.77 N, 35.21 E When was the last time you had a country named after you?

Many theologians believe, and I agree because of how scripture explains this account, that Jacob was wrestling with Jesus Himself. I’m not sure who or what is to blame but we somehow have created a dynamic of irreverence when it comes to interacting with Jesus. Trust me, I stand in fear and awe of the Lord and I know my nature is vile but He knows these things too. Wrestling with Jesus is not irreverence. In fact, we know wrestling with Jesus is something that He desires because the one man who physically wrestled with the Savior of the world walked away bearing the name of the nation of God’s chosen people. God chose the name Israel (meaning one who wrestles with God) as the name for millions who would be the fulfillment of His covenant - “I will be your God and you will be my people”.

Back to where I was at the beginning of 2018. I had these two struggles: one was to stay out of the wrestling ring with the Lord and the other was to queue up the late 90’s pyrotechnics and theme music and make my way into the ring. I think many times we can veil the unknown with statements of religion, and wrestling with God and EVERYTHING being on the line was the unknown to me. But, as I was hiding behind these religious veils, the Savior of the World was in the middle of the ring calling out my name.

This wrestling with God would cause me to shed what I know of “church” and pick up His design. This struggle would redefine what I know of love. This Holy fight would bring me to my knees as He revealed to me how I had let “church culture” change His very Bride. This 2018 wrestling match, which is still on going in some ways, would bring about the very things I had so prayed for and longed for.

So as I look back at the wrestling with God that took place in 2018, there are certainly lots of painful moments that were followed with healing and forgiveness. There are plenty of moments, looking back now, that to an outsider would seem so weird. But all these moments are victories in a wrestling match with Jesus. So, as I look forward to what is to come in 2019 and the wrestling matches that still lie ahead, I say “lets get weird and cue my music”!