“Thank You, Angel/s!”
I was doing my gratitude list this morning and listed “whatever angel or angels are detailed to guard me.” I do include the angels in my gratitude list at times, but probably not often enough.
Now, I don’t think I’ve ever seen an angel. No, I take that back. Maybe once. However, I do believe that they exist and are in our world. I believe in lots of things that I can’t see, so why not angels?
So, here are a few random thoughts about angels and their purposes:
First, angels are mentioned a lot in the Bible. According to Professor Google, they are mentioned 273 times in the Bible. That’s a lot of mentions for me to simply ignore them!
Fundamentally, they are messengers. This is the basic meaning (“messenger”) for both the Old Testament Hebrew word that is usually translated “angel” and for the New Testament Greek word. In the Bible, the word can refer to human messengers, but often to supernatural messengers sent from God. Probably many of my best insights come from God and are mediated by angels. (However, I don’t want to blame everything I say on God or the angels.)
Certainly, children have angels that accompany them—and probably protect them—according to Jesus (Matthew 18:10). However, angels aren’t just for children. The author of the Book of Hebrews says that angels are “. . . ministering spirits sent out to serve those who will inherit salvation” (Hebrews 1:14, my own paraphrase). So, you and I never outgrow our need for angels. Never!
And while I’m thinking about the angels as servants, let me give my opinion (it is nothing more) that this is one of the reasons why we are generally unaware of the angels. Usually, servants work behind the scenes, and are, therefore, not seen. The same is true of most of the human angels I’ve known over the years. It is definitely true of my wife. Of course, we often aren’t aware of the angels because we are spiritually obtuse most of the time, too.
So, in the future I may direct you to some passages in the Bible that speak of angels. The angels may be unseen and unsung heroes of God and our world, but there is no reason to avoid saying “Thanks” to them every once in a while.
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