Garage Sale Treasures

And Balaam said to Balak, “Build for me here seven altars and prepare for me here seven bulls and seven rams.” Numbers 23:29

Every Labor Day weekend, my whole family gets together at a camp in central Iowa. On Saturday morning, a nearby small town always has city-wide garage sales, which every year has drawn several members of my family to town. This year, my son and I tagged along, going garage saling with the girls. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular. I did, however, have 20 bucks in my pocket and a couple of hours to spend. You know that I found several treasures that I never knew I always needed. I didn’t set out to buy anything, but neither was I trying to avoid buying. In that environment, buying was simply inevitable. If I’d have wanted not to buy anything, then I had no business going garage saling in the first place.

My point is that our environment matters. If I’m struggling with my weight, I shouldn’t keep junk food in my home. If I’m struggling with alcohol, I shouldn’t hang out at the bar. The problem is that I like to approximate myself to certain things, believing that I’ll be strong enough to avoid them. I like standing near the fire, believing it won’t burn me.

This is where the prophet Balaam found himself in today’s passage – too near the fire. In the story, Balak, the king of Moab, promised great rewards to Balaam if he’d come curse the Israelites. God told Balaam not to go, but greed compelled him. Once in Moab, the king asked Balaam several times to curse the Israelites and several times, Balaam refused. It seemed Balaam was going to stand strong, resisting evil, but the book of Revelation tells the rest of the story, revealing that Balaam taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, so that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practice sexual immorality (Revelation 2:14). Balaam was unwilling to directly curse the Israelites, but wishing to attain riches for himself, he showed the king how to hurt Israel’s relationship with God. If Balaam had truly wanted to avoid evil, he would have avoided Moab altogether. Putting himself in temptation’s way though, Balaam eventually surrendered to that temptation, helping the Moabites.

We often find ourselves here. We don’t want to endanger our sobriety, but we want to spend time with those who are drinking. We don’t want to hurt our marriages by viewing pornography, yet we just click once on an alluring image. We don’t want to be burned but we want to stand near the fire, enjoying its warmth. If we go garage saling though, we’re going to buy stuff. So, daily, we must purposefully choose our environment, refusing to put ourselves in temptations way. If we want to avoid garage sale junk, then we can’t fill our pockets with cash and stand in someone else’s garage.