The Mind of God

Numbers 22:9 ESV

And God came to Balaam and said, “Who are these men with you?”

Balak was in a very difficult and scary situation. A great nation had come to his boarders. Looking at them and the mass of humanity that was camped before him and his people quake before them. Egypt had not been able to stand before them and now they were standing on the boarder of Moab. Rumors were even spreading of how a God was even among them. He had humiliated all the gods of Egypt and destroyed their army. What was he to do? How was he to preserve his people?

Balaam was a man who blessed and cursed people and it was so. He had the inside track on getting what he wanted from God, so Balak hired him to curse Israel. All this sounds reasonable. It fits well into the clean narrative that we like about God. It is not hard to believe that both sides of a conflict would recognize the spiritual warfare taking place and fight on that plain first. Yet, God makes it more difficult. God “came to Balaam”, a man who’s way was perverse before him (vs 32), a spiritual mercenary, a man who although he wasn’t allowed to curse Israel advised Balak on how to corrupt them that God would no longer be powerfully with them (Num 31:16). Why? What is God doing? Why did he send him only to try and kill him on the road? Does God really spare the wicked simply because they have faithful pets (vs 33)? Did God really allow the fall of Israel into idolatry simply because of a faithful donkey?

This sounds more like the “real life” experiences we suffer through. Never really understanding why God didn’t stop something from happening. This is when we realize that we do not believe stories invented by men, but rather the Living God who has written through his prophets what actually transpired. He has revealed himself in scripture and we see a person. Yet the problem with real people is that they don’t always make sense to us. They have their own mind and will, that doesn’t conform to ours. In the same way God is a person with a mind and will that doesn’t conform to ours but rather does as he will. Unlike the God of Balak and Balaam who is to be manipulated and is more a spiritual force to be purchased and bartered with, our God is a person to be loved, to be followed, to be adored, to be communed with, to be headed, and to surrender to.

God gives the most lost person’s opportunity to know him. He gives the most lost and wicked people mercy time and again. In his love for them he provides as many opportunities for men, lost or found, to repent and trust in him. Many like Balaam, are not disposed to this, preferring the “unknown God” to “the word made flesh” that dwells among us. Choosing to barter with God for favor, now and in eternity, rather than resting in communion with him and trusting him even when “life” doesn’t make sense, trusting that “all things work for the good of those that love him” even when how is not seen. The question then becomes will you draw close to know him or stay at the bottom of the mountain asking others to go up and bring you word?