Balaam was an interesting Old Testament character and even more interesting was his donkey.  Balaam heard from God, but he didn’t always see God when He showed up.  Balaam was on his way to see the princes of Moab recorded in Numbers 22.  He would saddle his long-time transportation for the trip, his donkey.  While on the road the donkey sees an angel blocking their way, not once but three times.  Three times Balaam becomes angry at his donkey for trying to avoid something he could not see and three times he beats his faithful beast.  Balaam becomes so angry he tells the donkey that if he had a sword he would have killed her immediately.

Then the donkey does something donkeys are not accustomed to doing, she speaks to her master, “Have I been in the habit of doing this to you?”  Paraphrased she was saying, “Look you moron human, as long as you have owned me, have I ever acted this way before?”  In other words, there is something else going on here and you’re not seeing it.  She was acting out of character and Balaam was not getting the message.  When I read this the other day I had to think about the fact that so often we (I) react to what we think we see, when we are not really “seeing” at all.  God is trying to get our attention and we want to thrust a sword into the roadblock when the roadblock actually has a divine purpose.  If something is out of the norm for you today or this week, could it be a divine roadblock?  Stop and ask the Father if there is a message in this abnormality for you.