“How beautiful are your tents, Jacob,
your dwelling places, Israel!
“Like valleys they spread out,
like gardens beside a river,
like aloes planted by the Lord,
like cedars beside the waters.
Water will flow from their buckets;
their seed will have abundant water.”
Numbers 24:5-7 (NIV)
Wendy and I are still amidst the slow process of addressing the contents of our lake house that was sold last December. This past weekend Wendy placed a shoebox on the kitchen island that contained all of the photos that we’d collected over 15 years and displayed on the walls there. I spent a little time digging through them. So many good times and memories with our family and dear friends. As Wendy and I paused to pray before breakfast yesterday, I felt a surge of gratitude for God’s goodness and blessing, and I expressed our thanks and praise.
Today’s chapter is a continuation of the story of Balak, King of Moab, and the spiritual guru for hire named Balaam whom he’s hired in hopes of cursing the Hebrew tribes camped in the wilderness and ensuring their defeat. Twice Balaam has gone through his pagan divination rituals only to have God demand from him a blessing for the Hebrews. Now, a third time, Balak demands a curse from the famous seer.
What’s interesting about this third oracle is that Balaam does not go through his normal pagan divination rituals. Instead, he “turned his face toward the wilderness” to look at the Hebrew camp. The Spirit of God comes upon him and he utters a word of prophecy like a true prophet of God and Israel. The Gentile pagan is used by God to bless His people, much like Zoroastrian astrologers from Persia showing up in Bethlehem to bless the infant Jesus with gold, frankincense, and myrrh. God is God. Throughout the Great Story God breaks standard operating procedures to use the most unlikely of individuals for His good purposes.
Balaam’s final message of blessing over Israel is fascinating when I meditate on the context. The Hebrew people are wanderers at this point in the story. They have no fortress. They have no palaces. They have no city walls or city gates. They are wayfaring strangers traveling through a wilderness of woe. But Balaam sees beauty in their tents, their tribes, and their families. The Hebrew people are a “garden” of goodness filled with a flowing abundance of love, joy, and shalom. Balaam sees the very thing God intended for His people all along and declared back at Mount Sinai before they set out. These people are different. God is with them. They are blessed.
As I meditate on these things in the quiet this morning, my mind wanders back to the photographs from fifteen years of family and friends at the lake. Good food, good drink, quiet conversations over coffee in the morning, laughter and the sharing of life over cigars and Scotch on the dock as the sun sets. So much love, joy, and shalom. Our tent was full of abundance of the things that matter most in life.
Our tent is still full of that goodness. Despite the fact that our season of having the lake house is over, our tent here in Pella is just as abundant with goodness. Just this past week Taylor and four of her girlfriends (and one baby girl), came to our house for a girls retreat. Wendy and I were so blessed to host them, to overhear their laughter and their tears as they made time to share life. In an hour or so Wendy and I will gather in the kitchen for our morning ritual of coffee, smoothies, the headlines, and the sharing of our lives together.
Shalom.
If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.
