One of my favourite actors is Dwayne Johnson. He’s better known as The Rock, a nickname he got while he was still a professional wrestler.

I love his acting versatility and his charisma; it’s actually pretty hard to reconcile the soft guy he is with the exaggerated, violent theatrics of his previous career as a professional wrestler.

But one thing about professional wrestling is that it doesn’t really resemble what wrestling and struggling actually look like in our lives. A lot of it is internal; wrestling to accept the way things are in our lives.

And just as wrestling is about submission, the truth is that all believers struggle to surrender to Christ at one point or another.

Why do we find it hard to surrender to Christ?

After all, the Bible tells us that from the beginning, He already knew the plans He has for us (Jeremiah 29:11). And when we surrender to Him, He gives us rest because His burden is easy and light (Matthew 11:28-30).

The fact is, we only ever want to rely on ourselves. We make decisions to benefit ourselves because we wrongly believe that we are the masters of our destiny and in control of our happiness.

Yet it was God who started His good work in us (Philippians 1:6) by even creating us. So when we decide to complete this “work” based on human strength and understanding, it will never work out.

God is not our opponent standing in the way of fruitfulness and happiness. We are our biggest opponents.

As Jacob physically wrestled with God (Genesis 32), he was also wrestling with himself.

After all, he had just been told that his older brother, Esau, whom he had stolen the family birthright (Genesis 25:29-34) and inheritance (Genesis 27) from, was coming to meet him with 400 men (Genesis 32:6).

Jacob must have been frightened. He knew that Esau had planned to kill him (Genesis 27:41), and that the 400 men coming with him could well wipe out his entire family and all he had. And he knew that he would deserve such a fate.

Against the facts and numbers, Jacob also had God’s promise from the time he was at Bethel: He would be the father of many and God would not leave him until He had fulfilled His promises (Genesis 28:10-15).

It was God’s promise that Jacob clung on to as he prayed: “Save me, I pray, from the hand of my brother Esau, for I am afraid he will come and attack me, and also the mothers with their children. But you have said, ‘I will surely make you prosper and will make your descendants like the sand of the sea, which cannot be counted’” (Genesis 32:11-12).

God is not our opponent standing in the way of fruitfulness and happiness. We are our biggest opponents.

I believe that even after that prayer, Jacob was still afraid, and not fully surrendered to the Lord.

That is when his inner wrestling manifested into a physical one with God, who seeing that Jacob would not relent, brought him physically to a posture of complete surrender and submission (Genesis 32:25).

Since Jacob’s hip had been wrenched, there was no way he could physically escape the potential disaster that lay ahead of him. I believe that’s why he told God: “I will not let You go until You bless me”.

In my view, that is the moment Jacob learnt to have total reliance and dependence on the Lord. In complete dependence and surrender, God made a way for Jacob out of a potential conflict.

When the brothers met, Esau ran to receive Jacob with grace (Genesis 32:4), and they were reconciled.

How ironic it is that we struggle to surrender to the Lord and keep striving in our own strength – when He has already promised freedom when we choose and follow Him (Galatians 5:1).

The Lord is sovereign over us. He is sovereign over all. That truth alone will always bring comfort. He is the only one we could surrender and submit to totally.

He is the God we can fully trust.