Man was made in the image of God. Most often as a youngster I presumed that meant something about how we looked. In time I have come to see that it has much more to do with how we act.
We are in fact designed to be “image bearers.” Therefore our human vocation is image bearing which is also our primary task. As a creature we are also given voice. Our voice is unique among all the animal sound making equipment in creation, We alone are capable of giving voice to the praise of God. All creation and its creatures glorify God as almost all naturalists and certainly nature its self gives record it its own voiceless beauty.
Non human creatures do not have this voice; we do. But we fail to use it in harmony with Creation to praise God - to hallow be His Name then scripture reports that even the rocks might begin to speak.
This principle then may give us some insight into Jenny’s finding her voice. Balaam, ever the voice for hire, was not dedicated to God. Even as he set out on the road he appears more driven by his desire arising from greed than service to God. His gift of communication with God was a money-making device for him.
Nature rebelled in a sense when he left home that morning. Heaven was prepared to strike Balaam dead. His redemption that day came not from another word directly from God. And don’t we put a premium on being able to speak directly to and even more admiration is given to the concept of hearing directly from God. I am thought, myself, such a gift would be too wonderful. The confidence that I would retain in myself as to my relationship with God would inspire me to devotion that I can only imagine.
Yet Balaam has these gifts: he converses with God. Not quiet as directly as Adam and Eve had in the garden before the fall, but still oh, so wonderfully. Still, his heart is not given to God. His heart is hard like the money his soul craves. No man can serve two masters. Balaam is on trial in that regard.
So, Jenny speaks out as God’s creation. Her life is linked to his just as the Apostle Paul remarks in passing that the whole creation awaits its redemption along with mankind (Rom. 8). Her remarks addressed to Balaam challenge him to be obedient to God.
So, all of God’s economy is entwined in linkage with him. Our mission as stewards of this world beginning in the garden of Eden was on limited merely to the first pair nor only with the garden. Ours is not a throw-a-way comos nor are any aspects of our lives, our world, our galaxy physical, spiritual or otherwise independent of the others. Shalom is a word that addresses the restoration of all these aspects to their rightful place. And peace is not merely the absence of war, and even our salvation is not to heaven away from a fallen world. We are in this together. Our job then as children of God, image bearers is to work toward that restoration of all things using our best tools and God’s guidance, just like in the garden before the fall.
O, Lord grant us wisdom to follow your lead and not our own fallen hearts and their willful misdirected plans. Amen
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