I have been a part of a weekly bible study for college students on Tuesday nights. After our meeting I could not shake our discussion from my head and I have been thinking about this topic for a great deal of time. You may not care, but there are a few things that I want to address about our discussion that night that I think might shed some clarity about the subject of prayer and meditaion and our response to God's perfect or permissive will. We read out of Numbers 22 the story of Balaam and I continued to re-read this passage meditating upon it. The main issue I have addressed and thought about is this idea of perfect and permissive will.

When Balaam first prayed to the Lord he received an answer and was obedient to it the first time. When the princes and influential people who has authority over Balaam came to bribe him he questioned the will of God. Balaam's heart had impure motives and we do not know why God had allowed him to go with these men but it incited anger in God. I cant help but ask if after this second time if Balaam had stayed behind and not obeyed God by going with these men would this also have incited anger in God. The fact is, there are a lot of "what if" and "would this" scenarios in this story that we can pull from and read into. But I truly believe that Gods anger was not only incited because Balaam was in God's "permissive" will, but because Balaams motives were testing the already clear will of God. Balaams heart was not with pure motive for obedience. Secondly, the choice to go with the men to curse Israel was not the will of God, so it was not permissive. Going with the men and being obedient to not curse Israel was his will.

What does this mean for us?
I beleive that in our lives when we are faced with choices and we seek the will of God we must most importantly come with pure hearts and pure motives and without an agenda. When God chooses to reveal His will to us, we must be willing to obey and not question His will. If we question his will and make our choices based upon "is this or is this not his perfect or permissive will" then our focus becomes obout choices and not about God. We must first and foremost be focused upon chasing after the heart of God and awaiting his revelation, not primarily focused upon the choices before us. Sometimes the choices in front of us are all choices we have been called to, or prepared for, and either choice can be within his "perfect" will, and in this case I believe God allows us to make these decisions because our hearts are in the right place, Balaam's heart was not. When we recieve revelation we must not question weather it is permissive or perfect, but ask ourselves are we pure of heart and then be obedient to His revelation.

These are just some things I am thinking about, I dont know if they are right wrong but I am praying over these thoughts and meditations. I am still praying about these thoughts and I could be wrong and truth might not be in them. If anything they can be used as a springboard for us to come to truth.