Receiving A Specific Word from the Lord

"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.” Numbers 22:28(NLT)

Romans 8:28(KJV) has got to be one of the most cherished verses for us believers. Through the Apostle Paul, God tells us in this wonderful verse, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”  This is unbelievable assurance! One of the amazing truths that this verse confirms is that God indeed has a purpose for our lives within His Will and Plan. Some of them we know and some we do not, but those that can be known are revealed in His Word. The other important truth of which you and I must contend is that we fit into God’s purposes, and our great privilege and honor is to find out exactly how we do.

It can be a very daunting task, because all of us have our own agendas and much of our prayer life is spent trying to persuade God to go along with them. He’s a merciful God, full of grace and love, and He coddles us up to a certain point, but there will come a time in our walk with Him where we’ll have no wiggle room to spare. All of us have received the scriptures, and we know that God’s Word says what He means and means what He says. Some of us may pay more attention to one particular passage of scriptures and doctrine than we do others, but as we continue to walk the path that He has laid before us, there will be times that we must flat out do what God says—no compromise—no deviations.

Numbers 22 is a great example of such a case. This was a period in Old Testament times, that the chosen people of God, the Children of Israel, had been delivered from slavery by the hand of Moses. They had left Egypt and were finally in route to seizing the blessings of God. He had given them the Promise Land, but He didn’t just dump it in their laps, so to speak; they had to take it—to go and possess it. Sometimes you and I make the mistake of expecting God to just hand things over to us as well. We expect He’ll do so at the expense of little effort on our parts. We tend to sit back with our hands folded and wait on God to move. As matter of fact, some of us will tell others, “I’m just waiting on the Lord to bless me.”

Isaiah 40:31 says, “But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength;” so we would do well to wait upon the Lord—to wait upon His directives, guidance, and way-making, but we do ourselves a huge injustice to continue to wait after God has told us to move. And it is also worth mentioning that even while we wait, we cannot sit upon our hands. There is still yet work to do while we wait. We should busy ourselves in service to the body of Christ.

The Israelites were mighty in number and the Book of Numbers, Chapter 22, verse one, tells us that they settled in the plains of Moab. The Moabites were afraid of the Children of Israel because God’s favor was on them and they were jacking people up left and right as they sought to take possession of what God had promised. So Balak, the king of the Moabites, sent for Balaam, a prophet.

Now Balaam was not squeaky clean, but there is no doubt that he had a gift and could hear from God. He both blessed and cursed through the decree of his words, and this was a known fact. Balak, the king, was terrified of the Israelites and wanted Balaam, the prophet, to curse them, so that the Moabites wouldn’t be overtaken by the Israelites in battle. He sent messengers to Balaam and said in Numbers 22:6, “Now come and put a curse on these people, because they are too powerful for me. Perhaps then I will be able to defeat them and drive them out of the land. For I know that whoever you bless is blessed, and whoever you curse is cursed.”

As a result of what the Lord had spoken, Balaam refused to curse the Israelites, but after Balak sent another delegation of officials, the Lord gave Balaam the okay to journey forward with them. Now the bible doesn’t tell us exactly what was going on in Balaam’s mind and heart after the receipt of the Lord’s permission for him to journey forward, but it is not a far stretch to imagine that as he traveled along with the officials, he began to develop his own ideas about what to tell the king, for Numbers 22:22(NLT) tells us, “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.”

We will often do this same thing. We know the way of the Lord. He’s given us instruction regarding what to do and how to do it, and yet when it comes to executing His Word and Will, we allow the flesh to enter the equation. We place our agenda before the thing we know to be right. Balaam was a prophet that was accustomed to hearing from the Lord. He was no doubt able to see in the spirit what most could not see, but whatever his agenda was on the road to Balak, it was against God’s purposes, so much so that Balaam could not even see the angel before him.

Balaam whipped the donkey that had been for so long his reliable transport, because the donkey actually saw the angel with his sword drawn, and responded in fear. Numbers 22:28(NLT) tells us, "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.” Hearing a donkey speak will wake up any person from a slumber of stubbornness, and it surely snapped Balaam back into reality. Balaam needed to put his own agenda aside and simply do what the Lord told him to do. Prior to seeing Balak, Balaam didn’t know the exact words that the Lord wanted him to speak; he did not know the circumstances that he would meet when arriving, but none of that mattered.

Sometimes it is not for us to know all the details of God’s Plan, our responsibility is to simply trust Him. We must trust that He will give us the words to speak through the indwelling Holy Spirit, and that He will meet us at the place of uncertainty and cause everything to work together for our good; but our obedience is absolutely crucial.

God greatly desires a relationship with us, and we all know that intimacy is a huge part of cultivating a quality fellowship and communion of any kind. The intimacy that is forged between us and God is a two-way street. It’s not only depended upon by us, but by God as well. Heavenly Father should be able to depend upon us to keep His Word in our hearts and to wear it like a second skin. He should be able to trust that we’ll honor our call and seek to do His Will, so that He is well pleased with us.

We should trust in God’s Word with our whole hearts, even if there are things we don’t understand. When we don’t understand something, the Holy Spirit that indwells us will teach us what we need to know. If God says go, go. If He says stay put, stay put! If He says don’t do it, don’t do it. As we prove our commitment to honor God’s Word preeminently in our hearts and minds, He will entrust us with greater works for His Kingdom. He’ll give us a specific word, because He knows we’ll be obedient to carry it through.■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.