Numbers 23:4, “And God met Balaam: and he said unto him, I have prepared seven altars, and I have offered upon [every] altar a bullock and a ram.”
It is interesting that the Bible says God met Balaam. The word that is used for met is vaykar. Jewish scholars render this as God happened upon Balaam. To say vayikar denotes something temporal and indiscriminate. Yet with Moses, God uses a word that is very similar. This word is vayikra which we render as and He called. This word is an expression of closeness and love (Rashi). I mean the Jews are the master and guardians of the Hebrew language and I will not argue the positioning of the vowel with them. In fact out of this little vowel change a saying has grown among the Chassidic Jews, “The hallmark of evil and unholiness is “It just happened.” Nothing is coincidental to the one who loves God and lives close to Him. Every event is purposeful and significant.
Yesterday I told how I happened to have a cancellation on my bus route and had some downtime. I happened to purchase an Egg McMuffin, I happened to pull into a large parking lot to wait for my next pick up. I happened to find myself among hundreds of pigeons, I happened to see one pigeon that was brown a different color than all the rest. Something just happened to scare them all away while I was sharing my Egg McMuffin with them, the brown pigeon just happened to return and continue to eat my Egg McMuffin and I just happened to become aware of a message that I just happened to believe God was conveying to me.
Sure we can call all of this just a happening, a coincidence. In the natural world it probably was just a happening, a coincidence and I just conjured this message that I felt God was giving me in my own mind and not my heart. But you see the meaning and purpose in my life is just to get to know and love God. I believe what happened yesterday was vayikra and not vayikar. I believe every word, every letter of the Bible was given to us by God and that we need to examine every word and letter like the Jewish sages and rabbis for buried in every word and every letter God can speak to us through His Holy Spirit.
Just a simple vowel change in vayikar (happening) to vayikra (calling) gives us a world of understanding. If you are a child of God, born again and seeking to know God intimately like Moses, then nothing is vayikar just a happening which is temporal and indiscriminate as it is with those who oppose God like Balaam. For the true believer, the one who sincerely seeks the face of God as with Moses, everything is a vayikra (calling that denotes love and closeness).
If you stand before God and just declare to God like Moses in Exodus 33:13, “Now therefore, I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy sight, shew me now thy way, that I may know thee…” Then like Moses every time you walk outside your door God will vayikra (call you in love and closeness) and that little squirrel that runs up to you, that little bird that sings and dances, yes that driver who cuts you off and shakes his fist at you, that boss that scolds you, that co-worker who invites you to have lunch with him, everything that happens during the day is no longer vayikar, just a happening, a coincidence, but it is a vayikra a calling of God to listen to His voice, to learn, to seize an opportunity to pray. It is to hear the message from God from that little squirrel, that bird, to pray for that angry driver or scolding boss or to share your faith with that co-worker.
Numbers 23:4 is showing us that when we seek the face of God like Moses nothing is just a happening or a coincidence as it was with Balaam or those who oppose God. To them God just happens to get a message to them, it may or may not be a message from God. But to those who seek His face, His love, His intimacy, there are not happenings, every event is a calling.
Yesterday my study partner and I left a restaurant in Oak Park and as we walked out onto the sidewalk there was a small group of people standing in a circle talking. In the middle of this circle was a dog on a leash patiently waiting for his master to finish her conversation. Just as my study partner and I walked by this dog suddenly broke through the circle and came up to us and we began to pet the dog. Later while we were sitting outside Starbucks getting some work done this same woman with the same dog came by. She passed closer with her dog this time than the first time but this time the dog did not even look up at us. Was this a vayikar, just a happening or coincidence or was it a vayikra a calling of God? As my goal and purpose in life is to know God I instantly began to consider just what was God telling me. Why did this dog come to me the first time and not the second? To me it was a vayikra, God calling to me to pay attention and learn something that would cause my relationship with Him to go a little bit deeper.
Someone once said that he never experiences coincidences, what he experiences are God – incidences. I hear Christians all the time saying, “Praise the Lord, I was looking for a parking place in a crowded street and the only one available just happened to be right in front of the place of business I was going in (that happened yesterday), but it did not happen it was a God-incidence an opportunity to or a call from God to draw just a little bit closer to Him.
If you wake up every morning and cry out to God, “Oh, show me Your way, that I may know you.” Then get ready for an exciting day for every little bit of creation you see, every little event that happens is not a vayikar just a happening, it will be a vayikra a calling of God to you in love to draw closer to Him.
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