When donkeys talk… it may pay to listen. Things are not always as they appear.
Who would have thought to give anyone that advice? And yet, in hindsight, we all know now what Balaam learned then… extremely important advice can come from a donkey.
But that was a unique incident in the history of the world and has never happened before or since, right? You and I are not likely to have a talking donkey in our experience.
Or are we?
The broader subject, of which Balaam’s ass is just a specific example, is the matter of God communicating with us. God has not always found us to be an open, ready audience for His advice. He has used every method imaginable, and some practically unimaginable, to communicate with us. He has a reputation among us for working in mysterious ways. When He might have been expected in an earthquake, He spoke in a still, small voice. When He sent His Son to lead us back to Him — and to become the king of the world — He did so in a way devoid of all pomp and circumstance. Actually, He sent him to us in circumstances of poverty and relative obscurity: the baby destined to be king was born in a barn, and raised in a poor out-of-the-way village.
Just how difficult it is to reach us may be seen in Jesus’ words:
“Whereunto then shall I liken the men of this generation? And to what are they like? They are like children sitting in the market place, and calling one to another, and saying, We have piped unto you and you have not danced; we mourned to you and you have not wept” (Luke 7:31).
In other words, nothing seems to work!
And God has been persistent. In fact, if He were not God, He might even be accused of nagging! The pages of the Bible are full of God’s efforts to reach us: “Howbeit, I sent unto you all my prophets, rising early and sending them, saying, Oh, do not this abominable thing that I hate” (Jer. 44:4). Finally He sent His Son, and we know how we reacted to that. Many ordinary people agreed to murder him.
But not everyone in Jerusalem was a murderer, and we may think that, had we lived then, we would have been of that small number who listened to Jesus with open minds and open hearts. Even if we share the same nature as those who rejected him, we need not share the same fate. Nevertheless, we are susceptible to the same human tendency: refusing to listen, especially to what we do not want to hear.
The donkeys God sends us
At first Balaam’s donkey said nothing (Num. 22:24). It just stopped and refused to move forward. We can certainly understand how this would have been very frustrating. When our car won’t start, we can understand how Balaam must have felt. Beating one’s donkey — like slamming down the hood of the car — almost makes sense.
Should he have understood his donkey’s actions as a warning from God not to proceed? Had not the angel just told him the night before to rise up and go with Balak’s men this morning? But then, the night before that, God had told Balaam, “Thou shalt not go with them.” On the surface it does seem like Balaam was getting some mixed signals.
But when we ask the next question we begin to understand Balaam’s motive in this sad story, and we may be on the way to self-examination.
The question is: Having received a clear, unequivocal answer from God (Num. 22:12) that he should not go with Balak’s men to curse Israel… why did Balaam ask the same question again?
Was it because he did not like the first answer? Was it because, deep down, Balaam really wanted to do what God did not want him to do?
Have you ever wanted to do something so much that you kept asking one person after another for “advice”… until you finally found someone who agreed with you? Then, of course, you followed his “advice”!
And of course we do not have to speculate about what was motivating Balaam. He was greedy (Jude 11). He wanted more than what he had. He wanted what Balak was offering. He was covetous — in effect, he worshiped the “idol” of money (Col. 3:5)!
What is the best way to reach you… or me?
Whether we covet what we should not have, or want to do what we should not do, or persist in a self-destructive habit… how can God reach us to help us change? How can anyone reach us? Are we reachable?
Jesus’ words —“We have piped unto you and you have not danced; we mourned to you and you have not wept” — suggest that God has tried, tries, and will continue to try every way possible to break through our natural resistance and reach us.
There are three principal ways in which God speaks to us (though He is not limited to these, as we know):
- the Bible,
- answered prayer, and
- the brotherhood.
The Bible is the clearest voice because its words are fixed in print and act as a reliable guide, to which we can refer and which we can discuss with others. We can reason logically about its message; we can consider all the evidence it provides. In doing so we may overcome our personal biases and tendencies, and get closer to what God is actually saying to us.
Answered prayer is extremely powerful to the one whose prayer has been answered, but another person might feel it is too subjective to be a useful indicator in his or her own life.
And now we come to the point of this message: God may speak to us through our brethren… through others… through our friends… our wives and husbands… our children.
We can agree wholeheartedly when Jesus speaks critically to his brethren, and when the New Testament writers write critically to the first-century ecclesias. But we have great difficulty when someone takes us aside and criticizes our actions.
The idea that God might be speaking to us through our brother (or our wife) is the furthest thing from our minds when we are being criticized. We jump so quickly into our knee-jerk defensive reactions. In fact, we may respond just like Balaam did: beating the messenger!
Sometimes we “kill the messenger” with a hot, angry outburst: “Who are you to tell me anything?”
Sometimes we “kill the messenger” with a cool, calculating, carefully-worded argument composed hours, or days, later — an attorney’s brief, sprinkled with sarcasm, and veiled attacks upon our “opponent”.
The question still remains: “How can we be reached?” If we are honest, we may say, “Well, please don’t criticize me in front of others.” Or, “don’t criticize me when I’ve just come home from a hard day at the office.” Or, “please wait until I’m feeling better.”
But the question is: “How can you be reached?”… not “How should you not be reached?” And the fact must be faced: some of us (many of us?) find it just about impossible to receive any constructive criticism whatsoever. That should tell us something about ourselves.
Perhaps, after careful, honest consideration we may come up with the way that we would find the least upsetting. (There will be almost no way to avoid all upset.) And in the self-examination we may realize two things:
- that the problem is ours, that we have erected too many barriers, too many defense mechanisms, around ourselves; and
- that the next time we are criticized, we should work just that much harder to soften our hearts, and to open our minds, and really listen to our critic.
This is not to suggest that 100% of all criticism is valid, nor that one should suspend one’s own judgment and be led here and there by every piece of advice one receives. But we should realize that most criticism has something of benefit in it.
Sometimes we act as if the world revolves around us. Very few people are staying up late at night trying to think of something to say just to upset us. When criticism does come, most likely the “messenger” has a point — whether well articulated or not, and whether he is the “best” to make it or not — and we do well to take heed.
Even if the critic is a “donkey” — and he well may be, one way or another — there may be merit in his “message”. And God may be using him to reach you… when all other “better” means have failed!
Besides, what does it hurt to listen patiently, and then think about it?
On giving criticism
So far we have thought about how to receive criticism. Jesus says, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). But criticism may be one of the few things that it is not more blessed to give than to receive!
Still, sometimes we do have the obligation to be critical… not overly much… but it must be done. Remembering the many “beams” in our own eyes should affect our attitude, but that alone should not be used to avoid our reasonable duties. There is an ancient principle in Leviticus 19:17 that actually equates failure to give criticism with hatred of one’s brother: “Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart; thou shalt surely rebuke thy neighbor, and not allow sin upon him.”
Common sense tells us that we should warn someone when we see him or her going down a dangerous path. Once when I was in Panama, I took a wrong turn down a street, and, fortunately, a merchant ran out of his store and told me not to go that way. I took his advice. But of course that was easy advice to take, and it contained no personal criticism. I had no burning desire to go down that particular street; and the danger was real, present, and fairly certain. I was not being told to change the direction of my life — away from a goal into which I had made large investments of time, money, and emotion.
How much more important is it to warn our brother or sister that the “road” they are traveling down may lead into spiritual danger, or even spiritual death! Better to speak up and be thought an “ass” for a while, than to feel — far longer — the guilt of knowing you should have said something but said nothing because it was easier.
“The wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy” (James 3:17).
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One