Thoughts on Numbers 24

Today’s reading: Numbers 24; 1 Peter 1

Reading about Balaam these last few days has gotten me thinking about how powerful of a warning he is not to squander the good things God has for us.

Despite his not being a Jew, Yahweh still chose Balaam to be His prophet, and clearly spoke through him often enough that Balaam became well known for his ability to bless and curse. This was an incredible gift from God that Balaam received, and while we don’t know anything about Balaam’s past or how his relationship with God has gone over the years, we see how he regards the giver of this great gift here in Numbers.

One of the things we see clearly from these accounts is that Balaam cared much more about his own reputation and/or prosperity than he did God. If you care about someone, you will care about the things they care about (or at the very least not try to sabotage them…). Balaam sees clearly that God’s desire is to bless Israel, but he is still willing to go along with Balak in trying to find a way to curse the people God desires to bless. More than that though, it seems pretty certain that Balaam was going to try to pronounce a curse against Israel himself at the beginning of chapter 24 since God kept blessing them instead. We are explicitly told that, rather than going to meet with God, he just turned to look at Israel, but then, before he could speak his curse, the Spirit of God came upon him and he had to say what he was told. Maybe I’m reading into it, but even when he says to Balak, “Come, I will tell you what this people will do to your people in the latter days,” I read that in a spirit of defeat. Balaam was there to curse Israel, and when God wouldn’t let him he was just going to do it himself, but then God actively stepped in and stopped him, and now Balaam is giving up the attempt to curse them.

Balaam was a prophet of God and he would only speak the words God gave him to speak, but that does not mean his heart or intentions were aligned with God’s. We will see this even more blatantly over the next few days when Israel is led astray into Baal worship and sexual immorality at Balaam’s suggestion to Balak. Since God wouldn’t allow him to curse Israel, he instead counseled Balak on how to lead Israel into sinning against God and bringing a curse down on themselves. If Balaam was in this for the love of God rather than for the love of himself, he would not be actively seeking to destroy this people that God expressly loves. 

I say that Balaam is a powerful warning for us because he is not the only one through whom God has chosen to work. Today, God works through the church. And I don’t mean the institutional church, though He certain can and does work through institutions as well, but primarily I mean the individuals that make up the church, the Body of Christ. Multiple New Testament authors speak to the fact that God gifts each and every Christian, by His Spirit, for specific kinds of work that He desires to accomplish through them. Some receive more and some receive less, but every Christian is gifted in some way to contribute to the building up of God’s kingdom here in this world.

Jesus Himself tells a parable about this with three people being entrusted with one, five, and ten talents (large sums of gold) respectively by their master before he left on a long journey. When the master returns he calls his servants to see what they have done with what he gave them and the servants with five and ten talents both come to him having doubled their sums, while the servant with one talent did nothing, but brings the master the one talent back. This gives us a cool glimpse into how God measures success. The master is equally happy with the servants bringing him five and ten extra talents because even though one servant produced twice the result, he also had twice the starting capital. The servant that the master was disappointed with was the one that simply returned him his money without having even so much as invested it to pick up the interest. God’s concern is not how much we produce, but how faithful we are with what we are given.

And this takes us back to Balaam. I don’t know what Balaam’s earlier years looked like, but I can say, at least by the time we see him in Numbers, that he is not producing the kind of fruit God would like from him, and I think this is a real danger for people who are powerfully gifted like Balaam. When you first experience being used by God in powerful ways, it is an amazing experience, and it is easy to be deeply humbled and grateful for it because it just so clearly comes from the Lord. Over time though, the more you use the giftings the Lord has given you, and the more practiced you get with them, the easier it becomes to lose sight of the fact that it comes from God, and to start to think that this is really you, and your intellect, and your skills, and your charisma, and your whatever else that are coming through. And as that happens, as gratitude to the Lord fades, your own glory rises to the surface to fill that void, and we can find ourselves much more resembling Balaam than we might be comfortable with. And in that place, the Lord may still, in his mercy, allow us to use His gifts and be a blessing to others, but when we are operating out of this place of self-aggrandizement, rather than out of a deep love for God and care for the things He cares about, we will not be nearly as effective as if we kept our eyes and our hearts set on the one who gave us the gifts in the first place.

But, it’s important to note that it is not only the highly gifted person who is in danger of selfishly squandering God’s gifts to them, but it is also the person who maybe feels under-gifted. In Jesus’ parable, one of the servants only receives a single talent, and, evidently thinking it wouldn’t be worth anything, the servant did nothing with the master’s gift. But here’s the thing: The master gave his servant that talent for a reason. God doesn’t give some people fewer or less noticeable gifts because He goofed up or because those people just aren’t all that important, but He gives them those gifts because He has designed them for a vital role in His work. So much as we don’t want to go the way of Balaam and squander the gifts of God, using them more for selfish gain and self promotion than for the Lord, just as much, we don’t want to squander the gifts of God by simply deciding for Him that what He has for us is insufficient or unimportant.

God has individually crafted each person who has ever lived. When God joins a soul to a body He knows the personality, the upbringing, the opportunities, etc. that that person will have, and He designs each of us for eternal purpose, significance, and glory. But He is the root of it all. God is the designer and giver of every strength, every gifting, and every ability, and when we keep our eyes on Him and let Him use who He has made us to be however He sees fit to use us, there is no better life we could ask for, and no greater blessing we can be to the people around us.