How can I curse those whom God has not cursed? How can I denounce those whom the LORD has not denounced? - Numbers 23:8

Today’s Scripture Reading (August 16, 2012): Numbers 23

I am just coming off of my vacation time. And over my time off I tried to relax (which is kind of the purpose of the vacation in the first place.) and, for me, part of the relaxation process is getting caught up on the mountains of stuff that I want to read but just do not have the time for – and part of it is simply playing games.

So, for my vacation, I picked up a copy of Sid Meier’s “Civilization V.” I had played all of the versions of Civilization up to the current fifth version, but I had not gotten around to playing number five. Now I have. The game is basically about building your empire and fighting border skirmishes with other civilizations. And inside the game there is the option to denounce somebody. Basically, someone gets you mad, but you do not want to go to war against them, so you call them names instead. And that sounds a lot like my daily life.

We denounce people (and things) that we do not like. But there is a problem with our name calling game. If you denounce me, that actually tells the world more about you than it does about me. It is the main problem with the websites that rate different companies. You never know exactly where that rating came from. It could be (and I think often is) that the person being rated low did things right, but not in a way that the person thinks it should be done. During my vacation I heard some stories from my uncle about running a business in the Christian World. And I should not have been surprised, but I was. My uncle runs a business that caters to Christians, and he said that Christians are the worst at trying to get things done “under the table.” My uncle is an honorable man, so that kind of illegal wrangling coming out of the Christian community bothers him. But I know the other side of it. There are a number of pastors out there ready to denounce any business that dares to stand by their principles and do things in a Christian way. It should not be that way – but it is.

And that is the crossroad that Balaam had reached in his life. He had a task to do. The king was asking for something. He wants Israel cursed and denounced. Basically, he would like to spread some bad press about them to every other nation in the area (just like in “Civilization.”) But Balaam’s problem is that God has not denounced them – so how can he.

It is the unanswered question whenever we decide to speak negatively about other people. Who has God denounced? And if God stands and says that I love them - that they too are called by me and stand in the middle of my grace and forgiveness - then how can we denounce them. And the answer is – we can’t. And that alone should make us pause before we say anything negative about … anybody.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Numbers 24