The theme for the summer sermon series at my church is "Front Porch Stories." So far we've heard some cool Old Testament stories - but the Abraham/Issac saga, although dealt with beautifully, is still totally not my favorite.
Yesterday the preacher was our 21 year old, college junior, summer intern. His story was the one about the guy who beat up his talking donkey. Found in Numbers 22.
OK, first, I'm hoping this kid chose this story himself and it wasn't thrust upon him in some church initiation ceremony.
The story is essentially this: God tells this guy Balaam not to go someplace. Then God changes his mind. This has always concerned me. But our preacher explained that God allows us to do things even though he doesn't want us to. (That free will thing.) And our preacher had a pretty sweet and funny story about himself to illustrate it.
So Balaam gets on his donkey and heads out. But an angel, several times, tries to stop him. Balaam doesn't see the angel. But the donkey does and tries to stop. So Balaam beats the donkey until the donkey speaks up and talks some sense into Balaam.
As I said, the whole story has never made sense to me. Our preacher said it's about obedience to God. OK, I can accept that but knowing the Will of God has never come easy for me. In fact, in my experience obedience has usually been emphasised by men who would like us women to be obedient - to them!
But the 21 year old, college student, summer intern was interesting, self effacing, and insightful.
And he made me think about this scripture.
So, thanks Zach.
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