you Well, good morning to you. Today I want to encourage you with a few thoughts from Numbers chapter 22 in this fascinating story of Balaam and his donkey. You remember that story? Balak, the king of Moab, wants Balaam to come and curse Israel for him. Balaam first doesn't go, and then Balak comes and is persistent, and finally Balaam does go, and he gets on his donkey, and he's riding his donkey to go along. And then in verse 22 of chapter, Numbers 22, It says the anger of God was aroused because he went, and the angel of the Lord took his stand in the way as an adversary against him, against Balaam. And so, you know, the angel of the Lord is blocking the way, and the donkey, you know, has to go off to the side, and the donkey turns his side out of the way. Balaam strikes the donkey to turn it back onto the road, And then the angel of the Lord blocks up the way again, and the donkey tries to go around and crushes Balaam's leg against the wall, and again Balaam is ticked and he strikes the donkey again. And again, finally the donkey just lies down, because the angel of the Lord is in the way. The donkey sees it, and sees him, and it can't go anywhere. He just lies down. and Balaam gets off the donkey, and he's beating the donkey and so forth, and then the donkey finally speaks to him and says, what have I done to you that you struck me these times? Now, that should have given Balaam some pause, and I'm sure it probably did, but we don't have his emotional reaction. We don't see his emotional reaction right then. He actually answers him. He says, because you've abused me. crushed my leg, and you won't go. You know, if I had a sword, I'd kill you." And the donkey then replies to Balaam, "'Am I not your donkey on which you've ridden ever since I became yours to this day? Was I ever disposed to do this to you?' He said, "'No.'" The donkey's reasoning with him. Now, again, this is a supernatural event, you know, and again, we don't see all the picture here of how Balaam is actually responding, but he's being confronted by the donkey, and he has no choice but to say, to answer him. But then what I want us to catch, and this is the main point that I wanted to emphasize this morning, verse 31 says, Then, only then, the Lord opened Balaam's eyes, and Balaam then saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way with his drawn sword in his hand. So the angel of the Lord was there all along. The donkey saw him. Balaam didn't. And what was happening is that the angel's presence was stopping the way, hindering Balaam's progress. Balaam had no clue. He was just frustrated. He was just angry with the delay, with the impediment that he thought was the donkey, until the Lord opened his eyes and then he saw the angel of the Lord. And then he realized that it was the angel of the Lord that God had sent who was restricting him and standing in the way. And as I read this, I wondered, how many times do I have my sights set on doing something and I get frustrated because I come across all these obstacles and I just, I can't do it. I get frustrated. I get maybe sometimes even angry. Then it occurred to me, I wonder how many times the Lord has sent his angel to stop up my way, to frustrate my plans. I just don't see it. I don't see the angel. I don't see the work of the Lord, at least not initially. It takes the eyes of faith to see that the frustrations of our plans are actually God's design to redirect us. Maybe to get us to stop and think about what we're really doing, what we're really after. Something to pause and consider today. So the next time you've got your sights set on something, and you find obstacles all along the way, and it seems like you're never going to get there, and maybe you won't. Well, before you're rushing to jump, jumping to conclusions, and rushing to judgment, and getting all angry, and all the rest of that. Stop and consider. Is the Lord trying to redirect my attention? Is he trying to send me in another way? Is he trying to stop me from this? Those are good thoughts to consider. Our Father and our God, I pray that we would actually stop and consider these things when we're frustrated and disappointed with the way things are not going, when they're not going the way we want them to go. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. Well, listen, have a good rest of your day. I trust our God will bless you richly in it.