Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - When You're Disappointed | Torah | Numbers 22-24

Episode Date: September 13, 2022

How do you deal with difficult circumstances? Do you feel like God has let you down? Are you disappointed with your life? In today's episode, Tanya uses Numbers 22-24 to discuss God's bigger plans for your life. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Numbers 22-24, Philippians 1:6

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Tanya Wilmeth. Put five people in a room and spend a couple of hours with them, and I'm pretty sure you'll have five different stories of people who are working through some kind of disappointment. Marriage, career, kids, relationships, jobs, friendship, money. I think Dane Ortland had the nail on the head in his book deeper when he said, Disappointment is an ocean, not an island.

I didn't like reading that line, though. I prefer to think of disappointment as a surprising and untidy house guest who comes for a few days and then hopefully leaves for a long time before making its way back again. But really any escape we have from the constant disappointment that the world is not as it should be is the grace and mercy of God. But we prefer to think of disappointment as an island, which probably explains why we get so ridiculously impatient with God's timing in our life. Abraham got impatient And he took having a child into his own hands With his servant Hagar instead of his wife Moses got impatient

And he tapped the rock twice to get water for the people to drink And missed out on entering the promised land The disciples got impatient And when the storm shook their boat They said, teacher, do you not care that we are perishing? And the Israelites got impatient a lot You know if you've been listening for the last few weeks But these stories hold up a mirror

to let us reflect on how you and I relate to God in difficult circumstances. We start well, and by the grace of God we end well, but man, do we absolutely lose it in the middle sometimes. And God knows this. And lest we take ourselves too seriously, he gives us a talking donkey and a much bigger perspective than we could have on our own. And we're going to look at that today in numbers 22 to 24. Seriously, though, it's important to look how those seven rebellions we've just covered,

those acts of incredible impatience and desperation from the Israelites are followed up by a story of a diviner and a talking donkey. Now, where are we? Well, unbeknownst to the Israelites, God is at work up in the hills of enemy territory, where the king of the Moabites is watching with great dread what was happening below. His view of what was happening was very different from what the Israelites would have said they were experiencing. Now, remember, the Israelites were over this wilderness had and they thought they should throw in the towel and go back to Egypt. But from up on that mountain, Moab's king saw something different. He saw victory for the Israelites. He saw a nation that was going to defeat him. He saw something at work that he couldn't even explain. And it made him very

afraid. So Belich gathered his elders and he said, this horde will now look up all that is around us as the ox licks up the grass in the field. Isn't it interesting how a change of perspective can really shed light on our experiences. Okay, so a talking donkey. I've heard about this, but I've got to tell you, I never really looked that closely at it until we got into numbers here on the podcast. But I really think you're going to be 10 minutes more appreciative of God's creativity and humor after you hear this.

So, Balik, he was the big, rich, powerful king of the Moabites. And while Israel thought they were on the verge of starvation and death, Balak was trembling in his sandals because to him, Israel looked so. so strong and powerful. So he gathered his elders together and he sent his VIPs to summons someone named Balaam. Now, Balaam was a diviner and he was supposedly going to pronounce a blessing on the Moabites and a curse on Israel. Now, there were two obstacles with this plan. First, Bala, the diviner, was in another region. And second, Bala, the diviner, loved money. So Baelic sent his VIPs on a trip with gold to find Balam and pay him to come back and do the divining,

the cursing and the blessing, but the first time Balim refused to come. So, Balik sent even better VIPs to Balim and he promised to give him anything he wanted if he would just come to Moab and curse the Israelites. So apparently, Balam agreed, and the next morning the diviner rose up to go back to meet with Balik. But at the same time, the Lord's anger was kindling. And the Lord sent an angel to stand in Bailam's way, quite literally. Three times the angel of the Lord stood in the path of Bailum's donkey, and the donkey couldn't move forward. It was just refusing to move.

So Bailam was beating his donkey, and he cursed it for embarrassing him in front of the Moabites, and then finally he threatened to kill the donkey with his sword. And then the Lord opened the donkey's mouth, and the donkey said, Am I not your donkey? on which you've read in all your lifelong to this day? Is it my habit to treat you this way? And then the Lord opened Balaam's eyes and he too saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way.

Now, let's not get lost in this narrative and forget that the donkey's eyes were opened before Bailams. We're going to get to more Bailom stuff later in numbers and he's not really a godly dude. But he was frightened enough by this experience to only do what God told him to do. This was such a shakeup for Bailam. Balaam, that he knew he had no choice but to speak exactly what God told him to speak when he got

to Moab, regardless of what the king wanted to hear. So when he got there, the king kept taking Balaam to different vantage points to look down at the Israelites and curse them. But Bailam kept doing the opposite and blessed the Israelites and cursed her enemies instead. And all of this cursing and blessing was a big deal back then. Now today this sounds a little weird to us, doesn't it? Diviners and talking donkeys and curses. But the point is, God knew how and what was needed for his plan to be carried out and his purposes to be fulfilled for those people at that time. And for those pagan nations, he used methods they understood. And he made them very, very afraid of the Israelites. He was paving the way for the Israelites to march through the heart of enemy territory.

Now, Numbers. It isn't a story of how awesome the Israelites are. It's about the wonderful way God keeps his promises. And our lives, well, they're not a story about how awesome we are. We are the story of God's faithfulness. The Israelites illustrate our human condition. While we are unfaithful, ungrateful people, God is working on our behalf in ways we can't even see. Now, even when they felt most untethered to him, God was accomplishing his purpose to bring the Israelites unto him, and dem. Have you ever climbed a mountain, even a small one? When you're climbing up and looking up, all you see is hard.

Every step is up. But no matter what, no matter how many hours or mosquitoes, or times you wanted to quit, or times your children complained, when you get to the top, your thoughts aren't the same as when you're climbing. You go from, I can't do this to wow, look at that. Look at that view. Look over there. Look how beautiful.

I did this. Now, we talked about Abraham earlier, and even though he faltered more than once, Hebrews uses him as a prime example of someone who lived by faith, because he traded in a life of knowns for a life with God that would only come from going through a lot of unknowns. But no matter what life brought, it was always better because it was life with God. Now, it may feel like the difficulty you're facing whatever it is will break you. It's okay to not know what's next.

it's okay to not have all the answers. It's okay to not see how it will turn out. It's okay to accept the limits of what we know today. When we have doubts, we can always assume God is in control. He isn't limited by time or perspective, and he's always working, working to rescue us from our doubting wilderness and bring us into his promised kingdom. Now, I find it helpful to write down and memorize a verse or a passage when I'm really struggling. So as we close, I'm going to share Philippians 1-6 with you, and I pray you'll be encouraged in your walk with God. It says, and I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. Lord, will you help us remember you when we can't see beyond our

difficulties? Will you comfort us with your presence? For those in the middle of hard things, will you help them believe you are with them? And for those of us walking alongside people in the middle of hard things, will you give us the energy and creativity and desire to step in and help them out? Amen. Before you forget, sign up for the brand new TMBT newsletter. Hit the link in the show notes and you'll get an email every Wednesday that will help you beat the midweek slump and go deeper in your walk with Jesus. Thanks for listening.