Numbers 22:32 And the angel of the LORD said unto him, Wherefore hast thou smitten thine ass these three times? behold, I went out to withstand thee, because thy way is perverse before me:
God told him to go. He asked in prayer and got permission but the angel of the Lord say that the way Balaam is going is perverse before him. This passage should scream at us about the need to know for sure what God wants us to do. He had prayed but sometimes praying is an excuse. Maybe we should dig in the Word more so that we could pray intelligently. If I know that it is not His will then I shouldn’t even ask. If I pray without the Word I will not know what His will is. I am afraid that it has become very popular to pray ignorantly today. God is not a genie that we ask favors of. He is the God of the universe who we should obey. We find His will in what He has written.