“God is not a man who lies, or a son of man who changes his mind. Does he speak and not act, or promise and not fulfill?” (Numbers 23:19 CSB)
Devotional
Most of us have been let down by someone who meant it when they said it. A commitment that quietly faded. A promise that had an expiry date nobody mentioned. A person who was absolutely certain about you, until they were not. After enough of those experiences, it becomes hard not to read our relationship with God through the same lens. We start bracing for the day He changes His mind. We wonder if His patience with us has limits we just have not reached yet.
What makes this verse remarkable is the context it comes from. These words are not spoken by a prophet in a quiet moment of devotion. They come from Balaam, a man hired specifically to curse Israel. Balak wanted Israel undone, and he brought in someone to do it. But every time Balaam opened his mouth, blessing came out instead, because God’s word over His people could not be bent by human agendas or overturned by outside pressure. What God had spoken, stood. And in the middle of all that, Balaam simply states what is true: God is not like us. He does not say one thing and do another.
We lie, sometimes to protect ourselves, sometimes to keep the peace, sometimes because we have changed our minds and do not know how to say so. We make promises in the fullness of our feeling in a moment, and then the moment passes and we are different people. That is the human condition. But God is not shaped by moments. He does not love us more on our good days and less when we are difficult. He does not make covenants and then quietly revise them when we disappoint Him. His word over us is not contingent on our performance.
That is actually harder to receive than it sounds. Many of us are more comfortable with a conditional God, because at least that feels familiar. A God who could withdraw makes sense to us. A God who simply will not, who cannot, because it would contradict His own nature, that takes some sitting with. It asks us to lay down the low-grade suspicion that we are one bad season away from being abandoned.
The question at the end of the verse is almost rhetorical: does He speak and not act? Does He promise and not fulfil? The answer the whole of Scripture keeps giving is: no. Not once. His track record is perfect. And the promise He has spoken over us in Christ is the most unshakeable one of all.
Reflection
I notice how often I approach God with my guard up, as though I am waiting for the conditions to shift. I want to take this verse seriously today, not just as a theological fact but as something I actually build my confidence on. He has not changed His mind about me. He will not. That is worth letting in.
Prayer
Father, thank You for being nothing like our worst experiences of people. Thank You that Your word does not expire and Your love does not have fine print. We confess that we sometimes hold You at arm’s length because we expect You to behave the way people have. Heal those places in us. Teach us what it means to trust a God who does not lie, does not waver, and does not let go.