The Man Wrestles With God

It was Tuesday of Holy Week when I walked up that hill overlooking the East Metro.

From the top, both skylines sit in the distance, Saint Paul and Minneapolis. Both quiet. Unmoving. Almost, isolated.

But I didn’t go up for the view.

I went up there carrying something.

Not loud. Not chaotic. Just heavy weight.

Anxiety had settled into my chest. Questions that refused to leave.

A kind of pressure that lingers long enough that you realize it isn’t passing on its own.

So I climbed with it. Not praying. Not speaking. Just moving upward with everything still on me.

And somewhere on that climb. It became clear.

This wasn’t going to be a gentle prayer.

This was going to be a confrontation. With God.

There is a moment in Genesis where Jacob wrestles with God through the night.

No formality.

No distance.

Just struggle. Just refusal to let go. I used to think that story was symbolic. Something distant. Something meant to be read and understood from afar.

But as I climbed that hill, I realized it wasn’t distant at all.

It was a pattern.

A man alone.

A weight he cannot carry quietly anymore.

And a God who doesn’t immediately answer.

When I reached the top, I didn’t approach carefully. I didn’t soften my words. I said exactly as it was sitting inside me.

Why do You go silent when I need You the most? Why?

No performance. No refinement. Pure frustration.

Because that’s what it felt like. In the moments where clarity should come. There is nothing. In the moments where direction would quiet the mind, there is only stillness.

And that stillness begins to feel like absence.

So I continued.

I brought up the Mirage. The very thing I once believed was real. The source. The thing that appeared as water in the distance. Clear. Certain. Flowing. Only to dissolve when approached. And now the question is no longer about what it was. But what it done to my sight.

How does a man trust what he sees again? How will he know, next time, if what stands before him is an oasis . . . or another illusion? And what happens when the memory of deception lingers so strongly that even truth begins to look distorted?

I stood with that. But beneath it was something deeper still.

Am I meant to pursue what most men pursue?

Career.

Money.

Structure.

Goal after goal.

Or am I meant to leave it behind entirely?

There are moments when this world feels like movement without meaning.

Like a cycle that promises fulfillment but never fully delivers it.

Achievement without satisfaction.

Desire without rest.

And in those moments, another path begins to appear.

A narrower one. A quieter one. A life stripped of certain attachments, where everything is directed upward instead of outward. And that path brings peace. But it also brings conflict.

Because the pull toward the world has not disappeared.

So now I stand between two callings. One that builds. One that relinquishes. But, neither has been confirmed. So I said it plainly:

I don’t know what You want from me.

I don’t know which path is mine.

And You have been silent.

And as soon as I said it, I understood Jacob differently. No longer as a story, but as a man.

A man who refused to let go even when the night stretched longer than expected. A man who stayed in the struggle without answers. Without clarity. Without reassurance, because leaving would have meant returning to the same uncertainty he tried to escape.

So I didn’t leave either. That was the decision. I stayed.

I didn’t dress my words up. I didn’t try to make them sound better than they were. I said everything exactly as it existed in me. Because I realized something standing there:

This is the relationship. There is no reason to disguise anything.

If there is frustration, it belongs here.

If there is confusion, it belongs here.

If there are questions without answers, they belong here.

I refuse to lie to Him. Because nothing real is built on pretending.

So I remained.

Not forcing an answer. Not demanding clarity. Just refusing to walk away.

And after everything had been said, after the weight had fully surfaced, I said one more thing:

It doesn’t have to be now.

It doesn’t have to be soon.

But guide me on this journey.

Reveal it to me over time.

The only way I want to live is righteously.

There was no voice in return. No sign. No sudden clarity placed onto me.

Jacob walked away from that night with a limp, marked, changed, not untouched.

I don’t know what marked me in that moment.

But something changed.

Because when I turned and began walking down the hill, I noticed it immediately. The weight was gone.

Nothing external had shifted. No answers had been given. No path had been confirmed.

And yet, what I carried up was no longer there on the way down.

The pressure. Tension. Quiet anxiety.

It all had passed.

Not because I understood.

But because I had finally said everything. Because I had stopped carrying it alone. Because I wrestled. And didn’t walk away.

I went up that hill carrying everything.

And I walked down with nothing weighing me down.

And maybe that is what it means for a man to wrestle with God,

not to win,

not to force answers,

but to remain, to speak without disguise, and to refuse to let go, even when the silence remains.