"Who knows why God has done anything?"

Scripture documents different ways God speaks to us. My favorite is the talking donkey. The prophet Balaam was used to speaking with God because he was a prophet. But this was just a bit unorthodox! On this occasion, God must have felt it was the only way he could get the man's attention. So "the Lord opens the mouth of the ass," and the donkey and the man have a conversation. The jenny asks Balaam, "What have I done to you that you should beat me these three times?" (Numbers 22:22) The ass had 1) turned off the road, 2) squeezed the prophet's leg against the mountain wall, and 3) finally fallen to its knees with Balaam aboard. "If I had a sword at hand," the prophet ansers, "I would kill you here and now."

Without going into the question, "Is this 'story' or 'history?'" what do we make of it? Maybe we should take a tip from the movie hero Shrek. Shrek's best friend is a donkey, and all through the film they talk. The main thing Shrek tries to determine, is, "Is the donkey saying something useful?" He often does, and Shrek is usually the better for it.

Even if what is said is "second-hand" -- as is most of what we hear from God -- the point is to listen, hear and obey. God spoke to the donkey, the donkey spoke to Balaam, but Balaam neither heard, listened or obeyed. In another case, the Angel of the Lord spoke to the shepherds, the shepherds spoke to Mary; Mary heard their words, but listened for the voice of God. (Luke Chapter 2:1-20) Why does God work in this round about way? As our favorite Black preacher once poked, "Who knows why God has done anything?"

That God speaks to us is terribly important. How God speaks to us is not that important. What God says is super important, and if there can be such a thing as something more important than that, it is doing whatever God asks of us. Fortunately there are other less spectacular ways the Lord speaks to us. Take dreams, for instance. We have all been stirred by Dr. King's speech at the Washington Monument, "I have a dream." The phrase comes from the Prophet Jeremiah: "Let the prophet who has a dream recount his dream; let him who has my word speak my word truthfully." (Jer23:28) Joseph, the foster father of Jesus, was informed by an angel in a dream that his intended bride, Mary, was with child "by the Holy Spirit." He was about to reject her for fear she was guilty of adultery. Again, after Jesus is born, in another dream, Joseph is warned, "Rise, take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt and stay there until I tell you. Herod is going to search for the child to destroy him." (Luke 2:13)

At Mt. Sinai, where the Israelites got the ten commandments, they developed a healthy fear of coming close to God. God's appearance was announced with smoke, thunder and lightning and loud trumpet blast (Exodus 19:16). Moses however, walked right through the fireworks, and it is written of this prominent patriarch: "God used to speak to Moses face to face, as one man speaks to another." In some sense this must be true of each prophet, they speak "face to face" with God. Since hearing God's word through the mouth of another person is perhaps the most common way we come to Religious truth, in another blog we will speak about prophets further.