ROBERTSDALE, Ala. (WKRG) — Joining us this morning is Wes Anderson with Grace Community Church in Robertsdale. We wanted to talk about wrestling with God. How do you define that, first of all?

Guest: Well, I think in Genesis Chapter 32, there’s a story about a man named Jacob and Jacob has a bad reputation. He’s known as being a deceiver. That’s what his name means. And he’s made a mess of his life. He’s stolen and cheated to get what he wants at all times. He’s stolen his brother’s birthright. He’s on the run in fear for his life.

And one night he’s camping, and he meets a man who he struggles with all night long. Yeah. And he wrestles. And that man turns out to be God. And he wrestles with the Lord. And the Lord says, DAYBREAK is coming. Let me go. And Jacob says, No. He refuses to let him go until he receives his blessing. And God touches his hip and pops his hip out of the socket.

And they fight and they struggle and they wrestle. And out of that wrestling, he gets a new name, a new identity. And I think a lot of times wrestling with God means that we struggle. It means that we spend time with the Lord trying to ascertain our purpose and who God is and and who we are.

Anchor: So how do we know when we’re hearing what God’s what God wants us to do instead of what we want?

Guest: That’s a good question. I think that we start by asking God. Prayer is nothing but a conversation with the Lord. A lot of times we think that prayer is just a one-way thing that we mentioned to God. The things that we need or that we want are our desires. But we don’t take time to stop and listen. And so if we want to hear from God, if we want to know we’re on the right track, we’re doing what he wants us to do. We have to take the time to stop and to listen. Conversation is two two-way thing, and it’s no different with prayer.