We don’t often use the word “defeat” in the Christian life, except when we say “God defeated death on the cross.” That’s the defeat we love. But what about the fact that every Christian needs to be defeated, continually, in order to really come into communion with the Lord?
In his book, Dark Night of the Shed, author Nick Page offers a terrific look at the phenomenon of midlife crises, using Jacob’s midlife wrestle with God in the desert as the focal point of his narrative.
And defeat is where he arrives. At the hands of our loving God.
Page:
“The first thing we have to do is to follow Jacob’s example and have a good wrestle. Paradoxically, we will never find real peace unless we accept God’s invitation to fight.
….And the fight will show us that we cannot win in our own strength.
Jacob was a strong man, but when it came to the final round he was beaten easily. But that’s okay. We have to be defeated by God, because it is only in that defeat that we will find victory.
….God knows Jacob’s true identity. What he’s interested in is whether Jacob knows it.
…. And God is so pleased with him [Jacob] that he does the most loving thing he can. He defeats him.
Think of that – the most loving thing God can do to us is defeat us, and yes, there are scars from that, but God promises life from it too.
Maybe not the life we’d hoped for, maybe not even life as the word implies (often our diseases make us feel closer to death), but we know that eternal life is on the horizon and I would rather have the hope of that than the present certainty of anything else.
As the famous hymn says: “Be still my soul, thy best thy heavenly friend/through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.” (btw, never knew Sibelius wrote the music to “Be Still My Soul”).
There’s a consistent thread running throughout Page’s book that’s salient for any person’s life as we approach our middle years: in our youth, we’re filled with aspiration, we seem to gain more control of our life, and there’s a sense of conquest (in the best sense of the word) and exploration where anything is possible.
I think it was novelist Graham Greene who once observed that much of the first part of our life is experience, and much of the rest observation of that experience (partly true, partly not, imho).
I’ve found that we can get trapped in that observation if it becomes melancholy nostalgia, we can also lose ourselves in depression and sorrow as it becomes increasingly clear that all those aspirations and explorations have meant little in the absence of true service to something Bigger (i.e. God).
Page writes, “It is a disturbing thing, that dark night moment when you realize that the gods to whom you have given your life have let you down. And the reason that it occurs in middle age more than at any other time is, I think, because in the first half of life we can still hold out the hope that they will deliver on their promises.”
So true.
Despite our intellectual monotheism, we often unwittingly live in service of others gods – if not consistently, then intermittently – as we pin our hopes on something other than Jesus as Deliverer.
It’s so easy for us, for me, to fall into oblivious idolatry, where we live as though our emotional deliverance will come from the fulfillment of an earthly aspiration. And so we prostrate ourselves to certain pursuits, unconsciously thinking they will bring happiness, and soon enough, we’re bowing down before a foreign god.
And that’s what Page is talking about.
Christians are as prone to this as anyone. In fact, it’s why Paul begged the church to “set its mind on the reality of heaven,” because only then can life on earth truly flourish.
Maybe it’s good that our physical health starts to decline in middle-age. I hate even writing that.
For me, at least, I’ve gotten a taste the past few years of incessant hospital trips, doctor’s visits, suddenly limited abilities, and it’s something I’ve fought against, but it’s also jarred me into a truth that the best of life that lies ahead comes from above – not from some new exploration on earth.
That’s a difficult thing to accept, actually, and is a kind of defeat, and I don’t know about you, but I feel as though we all struggle in our fight against God’s will for our lives, even as we pray for that will’s revelation and embrace the idea of following it. In theory.
Every epoch of our lives comes with new challenges, but middle-age introduces us to a new “new.”
When we were young, “new” often came with more independence and adventure. Freshness. We associated the word with promise more than anything. It’s not so much “new” as a description, but as a synonym for excitement and aspiration.
In middle age, “new” suddenly turns into what the word really means. Something different, “not existing as before.” It promises nothing other than that.
Except very often, it’s a headache of some kind that didn’t exist before.
That’s not bleak. It’s a well-documented phenomenon that unhappiness peaks in our middle-aged years, precisely because we’re aware of lost time, losing time, and the fact “new” means something brand new. It’s not the synonym for “excitement” it once was, but now just a cold word that promises nothing other than “not existing as before.”
We have to face up to it, because we’re forced into it. The fight with God.
And that’s where our relationship with him can either flourish or wither.
We don’t feel it’s a fight with God, but deep inside, if we look hard enough, that’s often exactly what it is.
And we all need to remember that final line by Page about the wrestle: “God is so pleased with him [Jacob] that he does the most loving thing he can. He defeats him.”
Except I wonder if any of us is truly defeated short of heaven.
In fact, heaven could be described as an absence of struggle, and if humanity’s original and continual struggle is communion with God as King, then maybe that’s one of the greatest things about heaven. We no longer struggle against God there, we are happy to be wholly his, and there is no more fight, because just as he defeated death for us, so he’s finally defeated us in life, and in doing so, liberated us from ourselves.
Jacob has no limp in heaven.
But during this earthly fight, we must always remember, “Be still my soul, the Lord is on thy side.”
If you’re struggling with depression or anxiety or any other brain condition like these…
For readers from the United States….
Find a psychiatrist here.
Find a therapist here.
For readers, internationally, seek help from a local resource.
For salvation, Christ and Christ alone.
[Painting: The Charge of the Lancers, Umberto Boccioni].
