I am In The Wrestle

At the end of last year, I found myself struggling and it was a strange struggle, because it wasn’t fuelled by negativity from my surroundings or discouragements from people as is often the case, it was something else. Usually, I am able to blame my struggles on something or someone else or I am aware it is something in me but this I could not figure out. I struggled to know why I was struggling with God but also why I felt distant. The church is working well, my home life is stable, kids are doing well I feel like things are working ok and yet I am at a place where I found myself lost and at a point of decision. Maybe God is finished with me, maybe my time serving and leading in Hillfields is coming to an end.

As we turned towards a new year I realised this awful reason for why I was struggling; In the almost 10 years I have been leading the church, I have always had a reason to enter the throne room, I found myself pushed by discouragements, betrayal from within the church, attacks from the outside, attacks on my character or leadership, failures feeling pained are all reasons that would push me into the arms of the Father; I needed Him because I was struggling because of some other influence. Yet in a year where there were minimal attacks and many blessings, I found myself struggling to enter the throne room of God, it dawned on me, that wanting to spend time with God because I want to, had gotten lost in the role of leading the church and in doing so it meant I had found that the only way for me to reach the throne room was if I was pushed into it. This really saddened me and was a wakeup call at the same time. Often our serving of the Lord substitutes our relationship with Him and when we do this it slowly leads you away from God even when God is using you and you are seeing results and blessings.

I have also learnt that my flick a switch mentality doesn’t do me any favours, what I mean by that is when I see a problem, then saying I will change and doing it immediately leads me to falter not to much further into the future. Like at new years we can say we will diet from 1^st of Jan, so at the tick of a clock we go from poor eating to healthy eating, and it works for a little but the issue really isn’t your diet it is your mindset and your desires. If you do not let them change and die, then the old habit will come back because it will overwhelm your mind and your desires will return. So even though I have been able to diagnose myself as being someone who needs to access the throne room and make space for a relationship with God that is not attached to my serving of God, I have learnt that I need to let God renew my mind, I need my desires to shift and then I can change, I can stand and I can move forward with God consistently. So, I write this not as someone who has nailed it but as someone who is working more patiently towards getting there. I have a lot more work to do, but I am dying to myself a lot more but yet still battling with that.

Which leads me to where I am now. Back on my birthday in 2025, we had an incredible and powerful night in God presence it felt like it was a potential turning point and I really believe a powerful revival was on its way. Now, one of the best and most intimate ways I personally find I connect to God is through my journal and when I looked back at the end of last year as to what my last entry was it was July 2025 not long after my birthday. There is not a coincidence that not journaling and feeling far from God happened in the same period. I realised that without realising it I had come away from that night on my birthday with an expectation or hope but I had also hidden from it and did nothing with it. I do not believe God would have started a nationwide revival had I not hidden and done more with it, but I do believe God was showing me something that humbled me and keeps humbling me, “I am not ready”. At the start of 2025 we were asked this question and I feel like I was like “Yes God, Let’s GOOOOOOO”. But as I sit with God a year on, I realise I am not. And not because I feel I need to be a better person or I need to strive more, just that I am not ready because I do not know God the way I want to and the way He is drawing me too and revival or not, I want that more or I want to work on wanting that more than anything. I am just being honest; I know wanting God more than anything is my goal but I realised I have so much in the way that I seem to want more than Him. I am distracted easily, tempted away from discipline easily, I am great at filling my time with mindless stuff, justifying it as my wind down time from serving God but really it is killing me. I really want revival; I really want to see this nation saved and on fire for God but what I should want more than that is to know intimately the only one who can make that happen.

So here I am realising I am wrestling God, I am fighting to keep hold of stuff that is in the way of me knowing God and wanting God more. I know that He is what I want and yet here I am trying to justify and keep hold of things that are just worthless. I have got comfortable in my Christianity, I have created a bubble that I am able to work with and I believe God is breaking that in me and saying I have so much more, I want so much more for you and for that to happen you have to let this die, Galatians 2:20. You need to let this go and get uncomfortable again. So, I am wrestling God, stupid right, I mean I know I can’t win and it seems so arrogant to even try. But today I was at a pastors meeting and I shared a bit of this story and I ended up being nourished amazingly by fellow pastors and one of the most amazing lessons was that wrestling God is actually healthy. Jacob wrestled God but after the match, Jacobs name was changed and the vision was far greater, Jacob clung to God desperate for a blessing and I realised as I heard these words that in wrestling with God, the passion and the desperation and the heart for more of Him will come because we will be closer than ever and in that I will know Him and see His face and out of that my heart will burst and my prayers cry out for His blessing. It was also mentioned that Jewish people would look at Christians as being too mild and soft when it comes to God, they believe that wrestling God is a healthy part of faith and a relationship with God. Hearing this made it so much more clearer because instead of feeling irreverent towards God I can see now this is part of my relationship with Him and right now I need to do this in order to breakthrough with God and into His next chapter for my life.

I write this for my church and for other church leaders because I know I am not the only one who is feeling this, but maybe I have helped a little in articulating what God might be saying and doing in you, because its taken a while for me to clarify and put into words what God is doing in me but I am becoming more aware of my sin, more aware of my time wasting, more aware of the distractions and more aware of just how much I want to be in an intimate relationship with God.

The final thing is this. Patience. I believe that God will pour out revival, I believe God will use our church in some capacity but in past revivals,  it was a few, I believe God is saying He will do it through the majority of the church and TOGETHER He will break revival into us and He will pour His heart into us and He will equip us with all we need, TOGETHER. So, I know it’s on the way but God is saying have patience with each other and have patience with yourself. Jess at a recent meeting in St George said to us, God had been showing her that it is not our access to His throne room that we are struggling with but that God is struggling with having access to the throne room within us. We are not as accessible to God as He is for us and that is where the wrestling begins, Lord help me to give you more and open access to my life, may you be able to enter my temple as easily as you have made it for us and your throne room.

May we all seek first His Kingdom and fight firstly to see and know Him that all the other stuff that we put more attention on will arrive when it is time not when we want or expect.  Matt 6:33

So, I am off to lose a wrestling match that actually will give me the most amazing victory in my life (only a loser can be a winner when Jesus is involved) and maybe you need to do the same.

May we limp onwards together full of God and our hearts full of His heart. Amen

Genesis 32:23-30

²³ He took them, sent them ^[a]over the brook, and sent over what he had. ²⁴ Then Jacob was left alone; and a Man wrestled with him until the ^[b]breaking of day. ²⁵ Now when He saw that He did not prevail against him, He ^[c]touched the socket of his hip; and the socket of Jacob’s hip was out of joint as He wrestled with him. ²⁶ And He said, “Let Me go, for the day breaks.”

But he said, “I will not let You go unless You bless me!”

²⁷ So He said to him, “What is your name?”

He said, “Jacob.”

²⁸ And He said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but ^[d]Israel; for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed.”

²⁹ Then Jacob asked, saying, “Tell me Your name, I pray.”

And He said, “Why is it that you ask about My name?” And He blessed him there.

³⁰ So Jacob called the name of the place ^[e]Peniel: “For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.”