Prayer is struggling with God.  Many post-moderns don’t like the militant language of “prayer warriors” and “spiritual warfare,” but there is a biblical precedent of viewing prayer as a core, emotional fight with God… a pursuit of truth from God that leaves one both permanently damaged and yet somehow more whole.  When Charles Wesley wrote “Wrestling Jacob,” a 14 stanza hymn, he read himself into the biblical story, where he was Jacob, fighting to grab hold of the truth of Jesus Christ.  He acknowledges that prayer can be painful.  He strives to know that it is truly the God of Love that he is praying to, and not just his own version of God that ends up being a false god.  This kind of prayer can wreck you, can devastate the parts of you that don’t want to be transformed by a God of pure, gracious love.  I wanted to capture this hymn in a way that challenged our typical notions of prayer as a centering practice that helps you calm down through meditation.  That kind of prayer is essential to my daily life, and yet, so is the kind of prayer that has me yelling at God…out loud…awkwardly making the neighbors wonder what’s going on next door.  God has pursued us to the depths of death and resurrection.  Prayer is pursing God back with as equal passion as we can muster.