The Dangerous Lie We've All Been Told | Numbers 22 | Crossroads Daily

Hey, I'm Chuck. I'm Kirsten. I'm Mish. I'm Miko. All right. This has got to rank as one of the most like, is this actually in the Bible? Is this not in Lord of the Rings? This seems like a scene from Lord of the Rings. Does it not? That was on a bingo card. It's like a Lord of the Rings thing. But it's in the Bible, right? And there's just so much to unpack here. What do you guys think about this guy, Balaam, who like makes a living out of cursing people? Like, what do you think about that? Let's just start there. What's like the modern day equivalent of that? Oh, call me now for your free reading. What was her name? Cleo. Cleo. Guys. Someone put roots on me. Y'all laugh. One of my best friends, I kid you not, this past month, like two weeks ago, was like, yeah, someone put a curse on me. My HVAC went out and my washing machine went out this week. So I bought a witch kit and they sell them on Amazon. Of course they do. For you to get rid of your curses. Amazon sells everything. Wow. They don't discriminate. Yeah. Just because your HVAC went out. I told her I was like, you do not come near my house until I pray over you. But it's like, yeah, it's wild and real. Like, I don't know. I believe the occult is real. Oh, absolutely. And let me define that. Like, there is a level of authority and power, waning though it is, that the evil one has. And people who dabble in those channels of power have a level of power. They don't have as much power as the name of Jesus. But I think to be foolish and not recognize that is to be foolish and to be unaware. Like, there's a prayer. There's a daily prayer that I don't pray it every day. But like, there's a prayer that I pray, when I'm sensing warfare. And it includes like breaking off curses and things that may be coming my way and coming my family's way and praying over my family of my wife and my kids. I mean, I think there's definitely. Yeah, it's funny. We didn't expect to get into this conversation. But it's kind of impossible not to. And again, to speak to the power of Jesus and the power of God. This guy is on his way to curse the people of God. And God is like, no, you will not. And sends an angel to stop him. And if he wasn't going to stop, I think he was going to lose his life. He doesn't recognize it. But his donkey does. And begins to say, I don't know why you don't see what I see. So man, like, what just what are the things that get in the way of us? Like really hearing God's. I mean, like this is a guy who is so bullheaded. He's about to walk right into destruction. What are things that would keep us from hearing God's direction in our lives? And my mind goes immediately to my own pride. Like pride has kept me from hearing the voice of God

far too many times and always at my peril. What other things come to mind? I've been listening to a lot of Pete Greig. He started this whole 24-7 prayer movement. And I was listening to him and he shared, you know, maybe God isn't silent ever. Maybe we're just distracted. And when we aren't listening, of course, we're not going to hear him speak. And so he talked about the importance of the practice of, like, silence. And so to answer your question, distraction for sure. I can imagine either way, like, had his thoughts swirling with, like, me, me, me, me, me. Or like his thoughts were probably running wild with all of the ways he was acting versus, like, the gift of silence and listening for the Lord and seeing him speak and move is great. I love that. The thing that made me think of, honestly, was distraction and also busyness. Because he might have just been thinking, like, this is my job. This is what I do. And it took the Lord to, like, stop him in his path and say, slow down. Look at this. Like, even so much so, he was, like, in his donkey. Every time he'd stop, he'd be like, get up. What are you doing? Like, he was doing the weird stuff instead of, like, stopping and just pausing for a second. He was just going about his day. A big one for me also is comparison. Just comparing myself to my peers. my friends, people around me, what I could have, the what-ifs in life, like that blinds me. That blinds me from what the Lord is saying and I think it adds to the noise to stop me from listening to it. Yeah, it sounds awfully familiar to Paul's abrupt interaction with the Lord as well, like literally stopped on his tracks, like so God doesn't discriminate, like Old Testament, New Testament, like maybe he still works that way today. I'm sure he does. That's really good. I'd say, I guess to sum it up, tainted desires for me. Because even here in this story, Balaam, like he heard from God, he's being obedient to God, but then he's seeing how he can actually benefit from this because he's got other intentions, right? And I think for me, along the way, I recognized that like somehow it just creeps into the crevices where it's like your desire may have started off as obedience, but then there's this self-focused, you know, thing that happens or whatever and desires get tainted. And then now it's, I think in those cases, because it's like you almost feel like justified, like, no, I'm doing a

good thing, you know what I'm saying? And it's like, yeah, but there's some things that have crept into your heart along the way. Totally. I think it's in Jeremiah where it says, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. You can understand it. That's the truth. But follow your heart, Chuck. Right, right. Yeah. Let's talk about that, right? Yeah. I mean, we were taught to follow our heart. It's like, no, actually, the Bible says do not trust your heart. Do not trust your heart. Let the Lord transform your heart, you know, open up your heart. But like, ooh, man, that's a scary thing to trust my heart, right? That's right. So then how do we not, quote unquote, trust our heart, but keep our heart open to God's direction and to what the Lord is saying and how he's leading us? What does that look like? I think, because even as we were talking about the heart, like I just, different verses from scripture about the heart kept popping in my head. And it's, you know, it says, guard your heart, right? It says, search me, oh Lord, you know what I mean? So I think just those are some things, like for one, prayer. Yes. I think it starts there, prayer, because those are like prayer, you know, as we pray those things. And then I think in that, having that relationship with the Holy Spirit, it definitely helps you to just identify when you are like off-center. Yeah. And then it's a choice of obedience or not, in some cases. So, yeah. You've said it a few times over this past week, but I think also just taking that, especially taking your prayer to people in community, trusted people who can at times challenge you, affirm you, or just ask some more questions. That's been big for me, at least. That's good. I think having that hard conversation with yourself, like we said, accepting that your heart is not the source of truth. It's just not. Our flesh is so broken. And I think culture so much, I have been victim of this, wants to say like, no, like trust yourself, like trust your gut, like, yeah, trust your heart. And in reality, I'm like, man, like I need something bigger than me. Like I am only 30 years old. I'm like this big compared to the God of the universe. Like I need to surrender. And literally with my body, like I've been reading here and there, C.S. Lewis screw tape letters, and how like your body and your physical action can reflect your internal processing. And so like that physical act of surrendering on your knees and asking God to search you is like, has been a practice that has just like taken the weight off. It's like, all right, well, I can't purify my own heart, but God can.

That's right. That's right. Yeah. If you've been around Crossroads for a while, you might be familiar with this, but if not, it just, it reminds me to anchor ourselves in some of the old teachings we used to do. So we used to talk about this a lot, that if you want to think about spiritual growth, like a three-legged stool, those three legs are prayer, Bible, and community. And so simplify it down to those three things. What's your prayer life look like? I heard you talking about that. Bible, we've been talking about, and obviously you're watching this because you've been in the Bible app, like being in the word of God and then being in community, right? And the seat of the stool is mission, right? Like being obedient and being faithful to the things God's already called you to do. That is a healthy framework for staying connected with the heart of God and with his plan for your life. So think about that three-legged stool today and press into that. You