Day 320: When God Blocks...

Numbers 22:21-34

So the next morning Balaam got up, saddled his donkey, and started off with the Moabite officials. 22 But God was angry that Balaam was going, so he sent the angel of the Lord to stand in the road to block his way. As Balaam and two servants were riding along, 23 Balaam’s donkey saw the angel of the Lord standing in the road with a drawn sword in his hand. The donkey bolted off the road into a field, but Balaam beat it and turned it back onto the road. 24 Then the angel of the Lord stood at a place where the road narrowed between two vineyard walls.25 When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, it tried to squeeze by and crushed Balaam’s foot against the wall. So Balaam beat the donkey again. 26 Then the angel of the Lord moved farther down the road and stood in a place too narrow for the donkey to get by at all. 27 This time when the donkey saw the angel, it lay down under Balaam. In a fit of rage Balaam beat the animal again with his staff. 28 Then the Lord gave the donkey the ability to speak. “What have I done to you that deserves your beating me three times?” it asked Balaam. 29 “You have made me look like a fool!” Balaam shouted. “If I had a sword with me, I would kill you!” 30 “But I am the same donkey you have ridden all your life,” the donkey answered. “Have I ever done anything like this before?”

“No,” Balaam admitted.

31 Then the Lord opened Balaam’s eyes, and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the roadway with a drawn sword in his hand. Balaam bowed his head and fell face down on the ground before him. 32 “Why did you beat your donkey those three times?” the angel of the Lord demanded. “Look, I have come to block your way because you are stubbornly resisting me. 33 Three times the donkey saw me and shied away; otherwise, I would certainly have killed you by now and spared the donkey.” 34 Then Balaam confessed to the angel of the Lord, “I have sinned. I didn’t realize you were standing in the road to block my way. I will return home if you are against my going.”

Sometimes we blame the devil for what God is doing because it doesn’t go the way we want it to. Whatever ‘it’ may be. We tend to think that when things don’t go the way we think they should then the devil’s hand is in it. Sometimes it’s God’s doing. Sometimes God is the one putting a block in our path. Sometimes God is the one stopping us from doing the very thing that we think is right. That’s what’s going on here, God is stopping Balaam from doing the very thing He is telling him not to do.

To give a bit of background of what is going on here, Balaam is approached by the King of Moab telling him to come curse the people that have just arrived from Egypt. God’s like, “No Balaam you will not go and curse the people I’ve blessed.” So Balaam relays that message to the king he’s all like, “God said no, go home I can’t go with you.” So the king sends his people more than before, and the king is like, “Please don’t let anything stop you from coming, I will pay you good money, just come.” Hold on, let’s unpack this. So Balaam is obviously a man of God and the king knows this, instead of honoring the fact that Balaam is listening to God, the king says “Don’t even let God stop you from coming, I will give you a lot of money”. As if his money is greater than God. Some of us have people in our lives that do not care about our relationship with God. Meaning they do not understand what God means to us so they are in a way trying to tear us apart from Him. Don’t let that happen to you. God is greater. Don’t allow the people God is trying to block you from, block you from God.

Back to the story, Balaam tells the king's people that he has to see what God says. So God is like, “Since they came to get you go ahead, but only do what I tell you, nothing else. On his way there God tries to stop him by sending an angel to block his path, but only the donkey sees him. This is the part I want to get to. Sometimes we miss the signs, we don’t see what God is putting right in front of us, and sometimes refuse to listen to the people or things God uses as vessels to warn us. The donkey saw the angel in the road and stopped every time. Each time the donkey stopped, Balaam who was trying to get to where he was going got angrier and angrier because the donkey was putting a dent in his plans. How many times are we like this with God’s people. When things don’t go our way we get into a bad mood, taking it out on everyone else as if it’s there fault. But if we open our eyes and see what God is doing we will understand that sometimes God is the ery one blocking our path. Sometimes He is the one who stops is from going into our own destruction. Everything is not the devil’s work, God works a million times more than satan. We as humans tend to give the credit to satan because we don’t  like what God is doing. Sound familiar?

All this to say, God is always working on our behalf even when we think He’s not. When God blocks something in our lives allow it to be blocked because when God closes a door please believe He’s opening another one for us. When God blocks something in our path it is never without reason. He knows what He’s doing.

Reflection

1. Have you ever felt like God was stopping you from doing something but you continued to do it anyway?
2. HOw many times have you found yourself blaming the devil for something God is doing?

Prayer Time

Allow your answers to the above questions guide your prayer. Take the time to reflect on what we talked about today and respond in whatever way you feel led.

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 321!

Day 311: Guard Your Heart, Don't Block It

Proverbs 4:23

Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.

Ezekiel 36:26

And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

Block- to obstruct

Guard- To keep safe from harm or danger , protect

I’m sure many of us have lived by Proverbs 4:23, as we should. We have set our sights on protecting our hearts. So we will not get hurt, or so that it will not be abused. Sometimes we’re trying to protect ourselves from the wrong things. What I mean is that we sometimes have our hearts so guarded that we forget how to let those guards down. Guarding our hearts becomes building walls around it so that nothing and no one can come in. Our generation is so afraid of being hurt that we would rather be numb. We would rather not feel anything. I understand that heartbreak happens, at this age many of us have had our hearts broken at least once, but we’re still here. God put our hearts back together and shows us everyday how we should be loved.

We have so many walls built, from hurt, disappointment, betrayal, abandonment, the list can go on and on. It like every time something happens to us we build a new wall and eventually our hearts become unreachable. We forget how to feel, we don’t know how to love or be loved because we are so guarded. We are so blocked off from everything that we don’t even let God in.

Why are we so afraid to let love in? In the sense that God is love, no one can love us the way God will, but sometimes we can be so guarded that we can’t even knock down the walls to let Him in. The amazing thing about God is, He will knock those walls down and pursue our hearts. God wants our hearts, He loves us so much, but we sometimes turn away from that love. We turn away because we view God’s love through natural eyes, not seeing  that His love is supernatural. We don’t realize that God will love us more than the people who broke our hearts, He will not break our hearts, He will not stop loving us. Sometimes we allow our experiences to influence of perception of who God is. When the truth is, our experience with God should change how we perceive the world, ourselves, and other people. We cannot learn to love properly if our heart is caged by walks we’ve built to try to protect it. When we do that we distance ourselves from God and His people.

With that being said we must not assume that everyone is out to get us.

I remember a point in my life where I was so guarded that I wouldn’t allow anyone to love me, or get close to me because everyone that said they loved me turned on me and walked out of my life in an instant. After that I assumed that everyone was the same way, I thought everyone was just going to break my heart. I made it very hard for people to love me, as well as for me to love people because I could not bare the pain of having my heart shattered again. It was like anyone new I met would have to go through a trial run before I would let them completely in, just to make sure they weren’t going to hurt me. I closed myself off because up unto that point in my life had found that love hurts. Then God showed me, love should not hurt in this way. He showed me how I should be loved, by sent people, good, genuine people into my life that would not be there to use me, or hurt me, but people who would wholeheartedly love me. It threw me, because I was expecting them to walk out of my life, and treat me the same the others did. But they didn’t, God sent them to show me what true love looks like.

-Dyamond

A lot of what we go through when it comes to this is, we cannot trust people, we refuse to trust people or we find it very hard to trust people. Also the inability to completely trust and give our hearts to Christ. The first thing we must do is trust God with our hearts. He made the human heart, He tends to every need. If anyone knows how to love us, it’s God. We have to trust that God will not allow us to hurt beyond what we can handle. And yes sometimes we will go through heartbreak, it’s a part of life, trusting God with our heart doesn’t mean we’ll never hurt again, it means that in those moments we trust God to put us back together, and so much better than before. We trust Him to love us through the pain and aches.

All this to say, we cannot allow what has happened to us in the past influence how we love people in the present and the future. Guard your heart, and protect but don’t block it and lock it away. God wants our hearts but we have to be willing to trust Him with it.

Reflection

1. Have you ever had your heartbroken?
2. Did it cause you to close yourself off?
3. Have you ever found yourself guarding your heart from God?
4. Why do think it is so hard for us to trust God and people with our hearts?
5. Discuss this.

Prayer Time

Allow your answers to the above questions guide your prayer, have a conversation with God about what we discussed today. Search yourself and see if you are blocking your heart and let God in.

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 312!