And let us arise, and go up to Bethel ; and I will make there an altar unto God, who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me in the way which I went. (Genesis 35:3 KJV)

Have you watched the WWF Wrestling Match? Although I’m not into WWF, everybody, include myself, have been into the spiritual wrestling match ring. We all have been dealing with problems and there is none of us have lived without issues. Even Jesus went through the wrestling match while He was on the earth.

In Genesis, we see that Jacob was having a hard time to obey God and go to see his big brother, Esau. We have learned that Esau and Jacob had problems while they were in youthful ages. Although it was not easy for Jacob to forgive his brother’s sin, God commanded him to go to Esau. God cannot give him more blessing until he would deal his problems with Esau.

In the same matter, we cannot go closer to God’s presence until we’d go into the wrestling match ring and deal with our issues. We cannot keep having victory unless we’d need to learn how to be losers and get ourselves up again.

God wants us to be victorious, not just victory. If we read later part of Genesis 35, God gave Jacob a new name— Israel . Jacob means supplanter and Israel means God strives. If we want to have greater purpose for God’s kingdom, we must go through the wrestling ring and deal with problems first. Many of us may don’t like to hear this or go through fire to shape our characters. Just as Daniel’s friends went through furnace to shape their characters, God wants us to go through our problems with trusting upon Him.