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The verses in Genesis 32 about Jacob wrestling with the angel mean the most to me

My Bible: reasons to believe in the power of the Bible

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'The verses in Genesis 32 about Jacob wrestling with the angel mean the most to me. It’s open, expansive, complicated and gritty. The idea that you can wrestle with God and be rewarded for it is fantastic.

I get a sense of freedom from this story; that it is okay to wrestle with God.

I have struggled with depression for 30 years and my experience was that when I asked people in the church about it, I got pat responses. I have had very dark nights of the soul without many easy answers as to why this is so. Jacob is probably still a jerk after the night of wrestling, and that’s putting it nicely. It’s not a quick fix.

Maybe that’s what wrestling through the night teaches us: there’s healing, healing in the making. It’s just not the quick fix that I thought. These are verses of hope for me, these are verses of life.

Depression is like a dismembering. It’s like being pulled apart, or at least, that’s my experience of being pulled apart before I can be put back together again. These are not verses that I can pick up when I’m depressed.

These are verses that I can go back to afterwards. I have a few questions for God, and these verses give me permission to ask those questions. I just like to know that these verses are there. I like to know that there’s this kind of God.'

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