What’s it take for you to change?

We went Colonial Williamsburg on our way home today (camp is basically across the James River from that area). 

This building was used in an American Girl movie the girls enjoy, and we got to see lots of unchanged colonial-era buildings. 

Fun trip, and a fun reminder of what it looks like to not change. 

Change can be good. Compromising can be beneficial. It just depends on how we are changing or what we are compromising with. 

Numbers records what happened as Israel traveled through different areas and came near Moab. 

Balak, the king of Moab, got scared, so he wanted Balaam, a man who apparently heard from God often, to curse Israel. 

Numbers 22:6 gives the king’s request: “Come now therefore, I pray thee, curse me this people; for they are too mighty for me: peradventure I shall prevail, that we may smite them, and that I may drive them out of the land: for I wot that he whom thou blessest is blessed, and he whom thou cursest is cursed.”

Balaam initially obeyed God and refused to even go see the king. Then Balaam  changed when more money and honor were offered.

Verse 15 says, “And Balak sent yet again princes, more, and more honourable than they.”

Balaam went to see the king. God allowed the disobedience but certainly didn’t bless it. 

No good came from this ungodly change, this compromise with selfish desires. Before long, Balaam’s donkey would be more spiritually discerning than he was. Sad reminder that we shouldn’t have a price; our character shouldn’t be for sale. 

Let’s always be willing to change as God leads us, but let’s never sell out our values. 

Today’s Bible reading is Numbers 22.