But God was very angry when he went, and the angel of the LORD stood in the road to oppose him. Balaam was riding on his donkey, and his two servants were with him. — Numbers 22:22

The Torah portion for this week is Balak, after the king of the Moabites, from Numbers 22:2–25:9, and the Haftorah is from Micah 5:6–6:8.

I once heard a story about an aspiring psychiatrist who toured a mental hospital so that he could observe the patients. In the first room he entered, there was a broken-looking man sitting on the edge of his bed staring at the wall. Over and over again he cried, “Elizabeth! Elizabeth!” The student left the room and asked the nurse, “What’s wrong with that guy?” She explained that the man had been madly in love with a woman named Elizabeth and wanted to marry her, but she rejected him. The man simply couldn’t handle the rejection.

The student continued to the next room, where again, he saw a man sitting on the edge of his bed, looking even more broken and despondent than the first man, also crying out, “Elizabeth! Elizabeth!” The student asked the nurse, “Was that man rejected by Elizabeth, too?” “No,” replied the nurse. “Unfortunately, that’s the man she agreed to marry.”

Sometimes, when God stands in our way, it’s for our own good.

In this week’s reading, after the sorcerer Balaam agreed to go with King Balak’s advisers in order to curse the children of Israel, God sent an angel to stand in his way. This sword-wielding angel looked so frightening and threatening that Balaam’s donkey, which could see the angel, refused to continue on its way. The Sages teach that although this supernatural being looked like the angel of death, it was actually the angel of mercy that God had sent. In His infinite love and mercy, God was trying to stop Balaam from doing something that he shouldn’t have been pursuing. God was trying to save Balaam from himself.

Friends, often enough it seems that something is terribly wrong when things don’t go our way. You may have had your heart set on a job that you were sure should be yours, but for some reason, you didn’t get it. There may be a house that you have your heart set on buying, but no matter how hard you try, you just can’t seem to get everything lined up to make it happen. Or, it could be that you met a man or a woman whom you really wanted to spend the rest of your life with, but that person didn’t feel the same way.

In all of these instances, God sent His angel of mercy to stand in your way!

Whether things work out how we like or not, we can always praise our God. Sometimes His blessing is in giving us what our heart desires, but many times the blessing is His salvation from what might have otherwise harmed us.