35 Bible Verses about Striving With God

When we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, 'Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? You are hurting yourself by kicking against the goads.'

Now look, God is with us as our leader. His priests are ready to blow the trumpets to signal the attack against you. You Israelites, don't fight against the Lord God of your ancestors, for you will not win!"

There is no wisdom and there is no understanding, and there is no counsel against the Lord.

Devise your strategy, but it will be thwarted! Issue your orders, but they will not be executed! For God is with us!

Therefore if God gave them the same gift as he also gave us after believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to hinder God?"

The kings of the earth form a united front; the rulers collaborate against the Lord and his anointed king. They say, "Let's tear off the shackles they've put on us! Let's free ourselves from their ropes!" The one enthroned in heaven laughs in disgust; the Lord taunts them.read more.
Then he angrily speaks to them and terrifies them in his rage, saying,

All his days the wicked man suffers torment, throughout the number of the years that are stored up for the tyrant. Terrifying sounds fill his ears; in a time of peace marauders attack him. He does not expect to escape from darkness; he is marked for the sword;read more.
he wanders about -- food for vultures; he knows that the day of darkness is at hand. Distress and anguish terrify him; they prevail against him like a king ready to launch an attack, for he stretches out his hand against God, and vaunts himself against the Almighty, defiantly charging against him with a thick, strong shield!

"You stubborn people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are always resisting the Holy Spirit, like your ancestors did!

But who indeed are you -- a mere human being -- to talk back to God? Does what is molded say to the molder, "Why have you made me like this?"

"Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him? Let the person who accuses God give him an answer!"

One who argues with his creator is in grave danger, one who is like a mere shard among the other shards on the ground! The clay should not say to the potter, "What in the world are you doing? Your work lacks skill!" Danger awaits one who says to his father, "What in the world are you fathering?" and to his mother, "What in the world are you bringing forth?" This is what the Lord says, the Holy One of Israel, the one who formed him, concerning things to come: "How dare you question me about my children! How dare you tell me what to do with the work of my own hands!

Then all the community raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night. And all the Israelites murmured against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, "If only we had died in the land of Egypt, or if only we had perished in this wilderness! Why has the Lord brought us into this land only to be killed by the sword, that our wives and our children should become plunder? Wouldn't it be better for us to return to Egypt?"read more.
So they said to one another, "Let's appoint a leader and return to Egypt."

These are the waters of Meribah, because the Israelites contended with the Lord, and his holiness was maintained among them.

He says, "Do not be stubborn like they were at Meribah, like they were that day at Massah in the wilderness, where your ancestors challenged my authority, and tried my patience, even though they had seen my work.

but if it is from God, you will not be able to stop them, or you may even be found fighting against God." He convinced them,

But David replied to the Philistine, "You are coming against me with sword and spear and javelin. But I am coming against you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel's armies, whom you have defied!

this is what the Lord says about him: "The virgin daughter Zion despises you -- she makes fun of you; daughter Jerusalem shakes her head after you. Whom have you taunted and hurled insults at? At whom have you shouted and looked so arrogantly? At the Holy One of Israel! Through your messengers you taunted the sovereign master, 'With my many chariots I climbed up the high mountains, the slopes of Lebanon. I cut down its tall cedars and its best evergreens. I invaded its most remote regions, its thickest woods.read more.
I dug wells and drank water. With the soles of my feet I dried up all the rivers of Egypt.'

He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" So he said, "Who are you, Lord?" He replied, "I am Jesus whom you are persecuting!

So Jacob was left alone. Then a man wrestled with him until daybreak. When the man saw that he could not defeat Jacob, he struck the socket of his hip so the socket of Jacob's hip was dislocated while he wrestled with him. Then the man said, "Let me go, for the dawn is breaking." "I will not let you go," Jacob replied, "unless you bless me."read more.
The man asked him, "What is your name?" He answered, "Jacob." "No longer will your name be Jacob," the man told him, "but Israel, because you have fought with God and with men and have prevailed."

The Lord also has a covenant lawsuit against Judah; he will punish Jacob according to his ways and repay him according to his deeds. In the womb he attacked his brother; in his manly vigor he struggled with God. He struggled with an angel and prevailed; he wept and begged for his favor. He found God at Bethel, and there he spoke with him!read more.
As for the Lord God Almighty, the Lord is the name by which he is remembered!

This is the reason I do my best to always have a clear conscience toward God and toward people.

"Exert every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to.

For we know that the law is spiritual -- but I am unspiritual, sold into slavery to sin. For I don't understand what I am doing. For I do not do what I want -- instead, I do what I hate. But if I do what I don't want, I agree that the law is good.read more.
But now it is no longer me doing it, but sin that lives in me. For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For I want to do the good, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but I do the very evil I do not want! Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer me doing it but sin that lives in me. So, I find the law that when I want to do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God in my inner being. But I see a different law in my members waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

Each competitor must exercise self-control in everything. They do it to receive a perishable crown, but we an imperishable one. So I do not run uncertainly or box like one who hits only air. Instead I subdue my body and make it my slave, so that after preaching to others I myself will not be disqualified.

My aim is to know him, to experience the power of his resurrection, to share in his sufferings, and to be like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already attained this -- that is, I have not already been perfected -- but I strive to lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus also laid hold of me.read more.
Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have attained this. Instead I am single-minded: Forgetting the things that are behind and reaching out for the things that are ahead, with this goal in mind, I strive toward the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

In fact this is why we work hard and struggle, because we have set our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of believers.

You have not yet resisted to the point of bloodshed in your struggle against sin.

Epaphras, who is one of you and a slave of Christ, greets you. He is always struggling in prayer on your behalf, so that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God.

No one invokes your name, or makes an effort to take hold of you. For you have rejected us and handed us over to our own sins.

And in his anguish he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.]

Moses returned to the Lord, and said, "Lord, why have you caused trouble for this people? Why did you ever send me? From the time I went to speak to Pharaoh in your name, he has caused trouble for this people, and you have certainly not rescued them!"

"Why then did you bring me out from the womb? I should have died and no eye would have seen me!

When I tried to make sense of this, it was troubling to me.

O Lord, why do you reject me, and pay no attention to me? I am oppressed and have been on the verge of death since my youth. I have been subjected to your horrors and am numb with pain. Your anger overwhelms me; your terrors destroy me.read more.
They surround me like water all day long; they join forces and encircle me. You cause my friends and neighbors to keep their distance; those who know me leave me alone in the darkness.

How long, Lord, must I cry for help? But you do not listen! I call out to you, "Violence!" But you do not intervene! Why do you force me to witness injustice? Why do you put up with wrongdoing? Destruction and violence confront me; conflict is present and one must endure strife. For this reason the law lacks power, and justice is never carried out. Indeed, the wicked intimidate the innocent. For this reason justice is perverted.