Don't Wrestle Alone

As a kid I always enjoyed wrestling with my dad and brother.  I remember once at a family gathering my uncle Rocky pounced on my brother and I and pinned us both on top of each other.  We loved it.  In high school my brother joined the wrestling team at school and quickly became a far more talented and capable wrestler than I ever was.  But over the years we enjoyed many a good-natured roughhouse together.  Well, most of the time it was good-natured. :)

Wrestling is an activity which one cannot really practice well or even compete in alone.  A person can watch take-downs, holds, and how to ride a leg all day long, but until he grapples with an actual opponent he knows nothing of the fatigue, reversals, and surprises a human opponent brings.  Competitive wrestling always requires another person to have a proper match.  The struggle, strain, and sweat of a good wrestle is only known to those who actively engage with others.

And it is on this point we must be watchful and wary concerning our own struggles and wrestlings.  As children of God, He has made us to be part of His Body, the church.  In this day of increased independence we can be duped to attempt to wrestle through personal struggles alone.  If we chose to wrestle alone we do not do well.  How much better it is to include select brothers and sisters to bat ideas around, to confess our confusion over evidence, and to work together to grow stronger and more equipped for future conflict!  That is the beauty of wrestling a teammate:  you can both improve and grow at the same time.  This is genuine discipleship.  Being on the same team your aim in wrestling is not to defeat each other but to train one another for the purpose of winning as a team.

Brothers and sisters, don't wrestle alone.  There may be times we might (an unadvisedly) wrestle against God as Jacob did, but as our Father He is able to bless us.  We are mistaken to think we can wrestle against principalities, powers, or even flesh and blood or arguments by ourselves, for we need the power of the Holy Spirit to stand strong under attack.  It must be incredibly rare indeed when anything we wrestle with would not be more easily overcome with the support, love, and aid from others in the church. We have responsibilities before God we are held accountable to, and one of these is to help each other - and this includes training others to walk righteously and live victoriously.  Galatians 6:2-5 reads, "Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ. ³ For if anyone thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. ⁴ But let each one examine his own work, and then he will have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another. ⁵ For each one shall bear his own load."