Four Wheel Drive

If you pay attention to vehicle ads on television, you know what the ultimate sign of freedom is. "Hey, anybody can get a car - something with four wheels - but not every car will take you where you want to go," they say. But if you really want to live your way, if you really want to go where no one else can go, if you really want freedom you need one thing: four wheel drive.

Four wheel drive can get you places alright. And it can get you stuck in a lot of places you shouldn't have been to in the first place.

There is a story in Numbers that really doesn't get a whole lot of attention, but it's got mine this week and if you think about it, it's got a lot to do with having four wheel drive and using it to make a series of not-so-great decisions, that land a guy in not-such-a-great place.

Numbers 21 lands us in a state of transition between two great leaders (Moses and Joshua) for the Israelites. The Israelites start approaching the territory of an opposing leader named Balak and he's not thrilled about the idea. So Balak sends for a diviner, Balaam (it's easy to get names confused here, so stick with me!), to come and curse the Israelites and thus thwart their advances in Balak's direction. Balaam, being a good Christian sort of fellow, though, says he won't do any such thing. Balak, in turn, offers Balaam quite a sum of money to make this cursing business worth Balaam's while.

And here's where I imagine Balaam's sense of four wheel drive coming in. He probably figures that "you know, here's this money that I need and all I've really got to do is ride along with these fellows and act like I might curse their enemies for them. That really doesn't require any particular act of evil on my part. It's not really compromising my faith," and as simple as that, Balaam takes the money and decides to join the evil posse. I mean, he's got four-wheel drive, he can drive through all that muck and mud and make it out ok, right?

God's got a different opinion.

God makes it clear to Balaam that he's not headed in the right direction. He tells him that he'd better just stay home and keep those four wheels in the garae where they belong.

Balaam saddles up his donkey anyway. God decides that if He's not going to get Balaam's attention, then He'll go after the donkey instead. God puts a fierce angel right in that donkey's way and she, by golly, stops. She's got four-hoof drive alright, but she knows a bad muddy road/fierce angel of death when she sees one and she puts on the brakes. When Balaam figures out what's going on, he probably realized that maybe this whole thing has gone far enough and it's time to turn and head back home.

But he doesn't.

God tells Balaam then, that if he's going to go bailing off down these roads with his almighty four wheel drive, then he'd better do exactly what God tells him to do.

Now isn't that interesting? God coulda struck Balaam down right then and there. Heaven knows Balaam has disobeyed orders multiple times now, is on his way to curse a blessed people, knows that God wants him to stop screwing up and he's going anyway! But God doesn't strike Balaam down. He lets Balaam go off muddin', but now Balaam's got a new job to do. God is about to let Balaam get stuck out there on the road with Balak, and now He's going to get some use out of this predicament.

As the story goes on, Balaam finally gets to Balak and sees what Balak is really up to. Curse the Israelites? Are you kidding? That's serious! Now I imagine Balaam wondering what the heck he's gotten himself into. As Balak drags Balaam to go look at that pesky Israelite army that's assembling itself, Balaam probably realizes that he's just gotten to the end result of a series of sorry decisions. Oh no, he hasn't killed anybody, he hasn't committed any mortal sin, but he knows he's taken a whole lot of steps that he shouldn't have made. But now he's here and he looks at Balak and says "Well, I have come to you now." Now I've done it, he's thinking. Nothing to do but resign and accept my fate. Or is there? Now it's come down to the very moment where Balak is waiting for Balaam to utter those words that will end the Israelites. Oh, the pressure on those four wheels now!

Then Balaam remembers something: "But can I say just anything? I must speak only what God puts in my mouth." Over the course of the next several days, Balak keeps taking Balaam to places that will show him how important it is to stop the Israelites' progress and Balaam continues to bless them instead. With each effort that Balak makes to change Balaam's mind, Balaam becomes more and more resolute in what he must do, now that he's gotten himself here. Balaam, in the end, blesses the Israelites, strengthening them, and in the process, revealing to Balak how powerful God really is.

This story strikes me as important from several directions. Sometimes I feel like I've been blessed with a four wheel drive that gets me through and to all kinds of challenging places that people said I couldn't reach and then when I get there, I'm disheartened that no one else has made it there with me. Balaam's story makes me think that God knows exactly where I am and how I got there and he's going to use my location in this remote place to do some good. Maybe He's going to get me away to a remote place so I'll hear something He has to say. Maybe He's going to get me to a remote place so that I can reveal Him to people who are already there ahead of me by the way I make future decisions.

From a different perspective, sometimes I feel like I've made one choice after another to do things my own way, and not necessarily for the good. I barrel off down these muddy roads simply to show that no one can stop me and then I finally look up and realize that my four wheel drive has gotten me a long ways off from where I might ought to be. It's easy to look at life and think that there's no going back now, no way to undo what's been done and no way to get past it. In this story, God is telling us that just isn't so. He's telling us that yes, we've wound up somewhere he tried to tell us not to go to or yes, we've had the strength to get to some place that not many other people can - and yes, now we're stuck. But - God can use our predicaments, whether it's ourselves or Him that put us there.

We've all got a little bit of four-wheel drive in us that can get us stuck in some pretty remote places. Maybe it's time to stop spinning our tires and listen to what God wants us to do now that we're here.