Moving God

The other night I was reading the story of Balaam in the book of Numbers. It's always a fun story, who doesn't love a talking donkey...

But I started looking at the next part of the story. The reason Balaam's donkey talked to him was King Balak wanted Balaam to curse the Israelites and God didn't Balaam to (obviously). So the story goes that King Balak takes Balaam up on a hill so he can see the Israelites and asks for a curse, but instead Balaam blesses them, because that's what God told him to say.

Here's where it got interesting for me. King Balak, not happy about this of course. So what he does next is take Balaam to another hill with a different view of the Israelites and asks him to do a curse again. When that doesn't work, they move to another viewpoint and he tries again.

It makes me think of some people I know, they don't like being told "no", so if they ask you a question and you say "no" they ask it again worded slightly different.

"Can I have a bagel with cream cheese?"

"Sorry, we're out of cream cheese."

"What if I just had a bagel and you put some cream cheese on it?"

I wonder how often we do that with God. He doesn't respond right away of give us the response we want so instead we ask in another way. Maybe we even go to another church, God will give me the answer I want there.

Does it really change the answer...?

T