Numbers 22:18-25: in context

As Balaam sets out on his donkey, drawn by the promise of reward to curse Israel, God's anger burns against him, and the angel of the LORD stands in the road as an adversary, with a drawn sword. Balaam cannot see the angel, but his donkey can, and she turns aside out of the path to avoid it. Balaam, blind to the danger, angrily beats the donkey to force her back into the way, not knowing that her turning aside was saving him from the sword he could not see.

The irony of the scene is sharp: the donkey's turning aside, which Balaam angrily resisted and punished, was actually saving his life. Balaam could not see the angel with the drawn sword blocking his way; he saw only that his donkey was going off the path, frustrating his journey, and he beat her to force her back. But her turning aside was not stubbornness or malfunction; it was protecting him from the deadly danger he could not see. The obstacle he resented and fought against was, in truth, his protection, saving him from the sword. This holds a truth about the obstacles and hindrances we resent in our own lives. Often we meet obstacles that frustrate our plans, turn us aside from the way we wanted to go, block our path, and we resent them, fight against them, try to force our way back onto our chosen course. And sometimes, like Balaam, we are blind to the danger those obstacles are saving us from. The hindrance we resent may be God's protection, turning us aside from a harm we cannot see, saving us from a course that would have brought disaster. What frustrates us may be God's mercy. I will hedge up her way with thorns, God says of his wayward people, so that she cannot find her paths; the thorns that block the way are a mercy, turning her from the destruction her path would bring. This should make us slower to resent the obstacles that turn us aside. When our plans are frustrated, when we are blocked and turned aside from the course we wanted, we are prone to resent it, to fight against it, to beat the obstacle as Balaam beat his donkey. But the obstacle may be God's protection, saving us from a danger we cannot see. It is good for me, the psalmist says, that I was afflicted; the affliction he might have resented was for his good. What we resent as a hindrance may be God's mercy, turning us from harm. This calls us to trust that the obstacles which turn us aside may be God's protection. Balaam beat his donkey for turning aside, blind to the angel's sword she was saving him from; and we too can resent and fight against obstacles that are, in truth, God's protection, turning us from dangers we cannot see. Let us be slower to resent the hindrances that frustrate our plans and turn us aside, trusting that what frustrates us may be God's mercy, protecting us from harm we cannot see, and that the obstacle we would fight against may be the very thing saving us from a course that would bring us to ruin. What we resent as a hindrance may be, like the donkey's turning, God's protection; and we do well to trust his hand even in the obstacles that turn us aside.

When my plans are frustrated and I am blocked or turned aside from the course I wanted, do I resent the obstacle and fight against it, trying to force my way back onto my chosen path, and can Balaam, who angrily beat his donkey for turning aside though her turning was saving him from the angel's drawn sword he could not see, teach me that the obstacles I resent may be God's protection, turning me from a harm I cannot perceive, so that I am slower to resent the hindrances that turn me aside and trust that what frustrates me may be God's mercy?