Numbers 24 - Eyes Wide Open

I just love the way this chapter starts:

¹ By now Balaam realized that the Lord was determined to bless Israel, so he did not resort to divination as before. Instead, he turned and looked out toward the wilderness, ² where he saw the people of Israel camped, tribe by tribe. Then the Spirit of God came upon him,

  Then Balaam blesses the people of Israel a third time. What amuses me is it is like Balaam finally gets it. Of course he had been telling Balak that he could only speak the words God gave him, but at Balaks instruction, he has traveled quite the road to get to this place.

Has that ever been you? Have you ever had to travel a long road to have your eyes fully opened and to understand and accept exactly what God was doing in a situation. I know I have asked this before, but why do we fight God? I think because we are created in God's image, we have a shadow of the characteristics of God, including creator and we seem to think that we have the knowledge of God too. Somehow, we think we might possibly have a clue about what is going on.

Whenever I am feeling that way, I think of God's conversation with Job when he asks Job if he has created the universe and made the sun to shine, etc and I try to humble my thinking. Though not easy, we all need to humble ourselves before God and get out of our own way. When Balaam finally does this, the Spirit of the Lord falls upon him. We can clear up the channel for God to use us and speak through us when we finally get this straight. Humble yourself and open yourself to God!

Now another interesting thought (or maybe it is just completely random) that I had was the phrase of, "the third time is the charm". In this situation it is the third time that Balaam completely opens himself to God without asking the question that God has already answered. It is three times that the persistent widow in the gospels asks for help from the judge. Three times until complete success is common in the Bible and I started to wonder if the origin of this phrase was early faith. I guess that could be a question for google, but an interesting thought (to me) none the less.

God Bless!