Divine Protection

But God said to Balaam, “Do not go with them. You must not put a curse on those people, because they are blessed.” Numbers 22:12

In our post-modern society, we are not in the habit of placing curses on people. Although, come to think of it, with the wide-open view of life that characterizes post-modernism, perhaps some are tinkering with the idea. One never knows. But in our usual 21^st century life, we give little concern whether someone has been busy casting curses on our life.

Passages like this one seem to escape our contemporary mindset. We are more concerned with obvious sources of harm. Mass shootings scare us a great deal more than pins placed in a vicarious doll. The effect of bullying is of far greater distress than a secret incantation pronounced in a dark basement. Someone might try to make a case for the power of such things, but that is not what strikes me about this passage.

God is concerned with blessing. He is so involved with those He has blessed, those toward whom He has extended His Fatherly care. The enemies of God’s people had tried to hire Balaam as a spiritual assassin. They believed he had power to pronounce words in a certain order and that “curse” would bring ruin upon Israel.

They forgot what most forget who try to gain advantage over others for their own good: God is watching! They assumed there was no power other than the power they were aware of. We can also make the same mistake. If I have the power of money I think I can use it to force my hand or agenda. Some have even used the “power” of prayer to try to pray away people they didn’t like who happened to inhabit their community. I even know of a cabal who, disliking their current pastor, met at the same time he led a midweek Bible study, and prayed against that very meeting. It was the ugliest misuse of “power” I have ever encountered.

Early in my ministry I remember a young pastor asking for prayer. He said, “Someone has put a curse on me and my family. We are feeling it.” He assumed various illnesses and missed job opportunities were a direct result of the “curse” someone told him he was under. I think my friend had forgotten the words of Proverbs 26:2, “Like a fluttering sparrow or a darting swallow, an undeserved curse does not come to rest.”

God would not allow Balaam to curse His people. And, even when he did give in due to greed and a desire to be someone special, his so-called “powers” had zero effect on God’s own. I have encountered many fearful Christians in my time. They may not attribute their anxiety to a possible curse, but they come fairly near to it. They fear God’s anger because they lived in a home where any number of activities took place that God disliked. You can fill in your own items. I won’t do so here, so as not to take us down one particular road or the other. But I think we all know people, or times in our own life, that we have thought, “there must be something that is cursed in my life. Why can’t I seem to get ahead.”

If you have made the decision to follow Jesus, and are daily laying down your life and pursuing Him anew, I guarantee you that God sees you as “blessed”. You are blessed because You have trusted God’s forgiveness for all your sins, and his provision as a child of His own. This does not mean we are free from hardships; but it does mean that there is no outside force doing an end-run around God to get a spiritual strangle-hold on you.

If you have carefully examined your own life and are certain you are following Jesus as best you know how, rest assured about silly “curses.” Most times we can trace the source of personal difficulties right back to our own foibles. Trying to blame some “outside” source can be just one more way of avoiding responsibility for living as a constant apprentice of Christ.

Live blessed, dear reader. Even when hardships come, and they come to all of us, you can have the assurance that God has blocked any attempts to harm your relationship with Him. Just like a good computer firewall, all the viruses are outside your hardrive. They are not allowed entrance. Yes, I am afraid to announce this; but most computer problems are due to user error, not viruses.

Because we equate blessing with “feeling good”, we sometimes miss God in the darkness. The blessings of Christ are experienced in our sufferings in ways we cannot fathom. After Jesus struggled in the garden, sweating drops of blood in agony, the gospel records that angels came to minister to Him. Do not believe that God has forsaken you and that some curse has squeezed His life from your being. Instead, live blessed. Know Father God has not allowed any outside force to harm the soul He gave everything to save.