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Have you ever asked yourself the question “God can I really do this”? If so, then you are not alone. For many of us God has shown us stuff that we just don’t know how possible it would be for us to be the one to do it.
Perhaps God has shown you you will be a speaker one day and you say “Me God? The introvert? Speaking in public? Now how is that ever going to be possible?”. The same can be applied to how we view ourselves. We may see ourselves as too quiet and refuse to accept this part of us that God put there to serve a purpose.
Why God chooses to wrestle with you
Many times the dreams God gives us and the elements of who He shows us we are is based on who He already knows us to be. We can find ourselves in cycles of internal wrestling and struggle with the big vision God has for us because it does not match up with our present reality. We don’t see how what He has said can ever come to pass, it just doesn’t make sense.
Because of this, we can run away from it. Or we try to do things our way so we do not become embarrassed or humiliated in the eyes of others. We bury the vision in an attempt to not appear foolish or unwise to others.
We hide the true parts of ourselves God wants to use to bring Him glory for fear of rejection and not fitting in. We engage with certain things or embrace character traits that do not glorify God just to belong, just to not look weird, just to be safe.
Sound familiar?
One of the ways God can choose to intervene is by actually wrestling with us.
Why does that happen?
Well, God wrestling with us occurs either by outright rejecting or struggling to accept what He has revealed and made known to us as our path or by enforcing our own way on how we want things to be.
Could you literally be in a divine wrestling match with God as you struggle to accept who you truly are in Him and His vision for your life?
What wrestling with God can look like
I know what you are thinking, what does this look like and how can someone wrestle with God?
Well, let’s look at what happened to a person recorded in the bible to have wrestled with God. That person was Jacob. In Genesis 32:22-32, we see how God wrestled with Jacob.
Jacob had a history of being self-reliant and scheming his way through life. It looks like God was about to settle this matter once and for all by going into a battle with him. It was only through this that Jacob could eventually walk in the fullness of who God called Him to be.
Dear introvert, could that situation that you are finding difficult either internally or externally be because God is wrestling with you to get you back on track to who He has called you to be?
The result of wrestling with God
The thing that amazes me about what God did in this story was that He did not overpower Jacob, but instead, he gracefully broke him. God could have very well ended the battle very quickly, He could have overpowered Jacob immediately but in His graciousness He let the battle go on all night and gracefully broke him in an area that he had to admit defeat.
By gracefully breaking him in an area, Jacob would have no choice but to submit to God’s way not out of fear but out of absolute surrender. I believe this wrestling match can lead each of us to a place of surrender to submit to God’s perfect will and plan for us.
Do you feel like a situation is just too much to handle right now? Do you feel like what God is asking from you is too big? Do you feel unqualified for what He is showing you? Do you feel like you are in a place where it doesn’t seem like you have any choice but to do what God said?
Well dear friend, I want to encourage you, God doesn’t allow these things to happen for no reason. He allowed such things to happen because He knows what’s in you and wants to draw it out. He gracefully breaks, to gracefully restore, redeem and reconcile you to Him, His vision, His will. And according to His word, His plans towards us are of good and not of evil, to prosper us and not to harm us, plans to give us hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11).
The blessing from the brokenness
After being gracefully broken, Jacob in His surrendered state received a blessing. God wastes nothing and in his broken state Jacob remained clinging to God asking to be blessed.
I believe Jacob was saying, “God you have just broken me in this manner but you cannot leave me like this, I can’t be left like this. I am weak, I am broken but this can’t be for nothing. You can’t leave me with nothing. I want to be blessed and broken and not just broken. Bless me in my broken state because in my weakness you are made strong”.
I believe Jacob understood something, God didn’t wrestle with Him for nothing. There was something attached to the breaking and He asked for it, not from a place of demand but divine expectation and acknowledgement of God’s sovereignty and rule over man.
Dear introvert, even in your broken state, don’t forget God can still bless. The journey to surrender and truly embracing who God called us to be and His vision can require for us to be gracefully broken as God wrestles with us. But one thing is for sure, a blessing can come from the breaking but do we ever see it that way? Do we stay in a place of gracefully broken but never move into the side of blessing?
Perhaps we believe that being broken is the way God wants it to be but I do not believe that is God’s intention. God is a good Father that delights in the prosperity and wellness of His people.
Break free, fellow introvert and move into believing you can walk into the blessing of the Lord in your weak state as you rely fully on God and step into the fullness of who He has called you to be.
The Round-up
So what do I want you to take from this?
It’s time to stop fighting with what God is showing you about you. It’s time to start embracing that God can use anyone, even an introvert, to do powerful things on the earth.
If you find yourself in a tough situation, think about how God may be using it to get you to a place of surrender so that you can walk out His plan for your life.
And if you are in a state of having been gracefully broken, remember that there is more than brokenness that awaits, an actual blessing is attached. Don’t waste your broken state, don’t let it be for nothing, walk in divine expectation that something good is going to come out of this. You may not fully understand it but you know that God who holds your future and that is enough to believe that everything is going to work out for good.
I hope that this post was able to encourage you as you walk this whole thriving introvertly journey out. Perhaps choosing to embark on this journey in itself is a struggle with God but let’s just surrender and let Him have His way in us knowing that what awaits on the other side is far greater than what we had to sacrifice to get there.
If you believe in the vision of this space, to see more introverts embracing who they are in Christ and stepping into the fullness of who He has called them to be, and would like to partner with us, you can do so HERE.
Until the next post,
Stay Blessed.
Tosin
