“For He will command His angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways…”
Psalm 91:11
Did you ever have a near miss? You know, a moment that should have been a car wreck by every law of physics and yet, somehow, it wasn’t? You don’t know how it happened, and you can’t explain exactly how you walked away, but here you are? Did you ever have a situation where the money you needed to make it to the next moment just somehow simply showed up? Or were you ever in a city you don’t know and some stranger showed up out of nowhere and gave you the advice or directions or encouragement you needed to keep on going or get where you needed to go? So many of us have these stories; there simply has to be something to them. Just ask a room of people if they have a story like this, and before you know it, there will be way too many stories for “it just so happened” to be the only explanation.
For those of us who believe in Jesus, we actually have that explanation. It turns out that we are never alone—even when it feels like we are. The Bible says there are angels all around us. At all times and everywhere, they are here, right now, just beyond our field of view. Angels are God’s army. They are His military forces who carry out His orders in our world. Sometimes, those orders include you. Psalm 91 says they get specific directives from on High to protect us. Hebrews 1 says they are ministering spirits who are sent forth to serve us. That word we’ve translated “ministering” (λειτουργούς) is an adjective only used in this one verse. The word appears more often as a noun that refers to government officials. It combines the Greek words for ‘work’ and ‘people’ - so, the angels are workers for the people in an official capacity for His Majesty the King.
Imagine what would change for you if you started every day with the mindset that you are being personally protected by the mighty, fiery, eternal troops of Heaven. You aren’t just going about your business today. You are actually flanked by invisible angels who occasionally step in and thumb the scale of reality for your benefit according to the will and the marching orders of your gracious Father. In Matthew 18, Jesus warns people about how they should treat children and the reason He gives for the caution is that “their angels in Heaven always see the face of my Father in Heaven.” Do you understand what this means? Jesus said, “their angels,” which means there are specific angels who are assigned to you! Like the security detail for the First Family, you have members of the true Secret Service assigned to your movements. And just like the Secret Service, you have that security detail because you are a member of the Royal Family. You are a child of the King and absolutely nothing threatens your person or your life outside of the watchful eye of your Father. We may never know how many moments were mitigated by the mandates that came down the chain of command for those powerful angels who have your back.
Sometimes they are allowed to lift the curtain on that visual barrier that keeps us from recognizing them—in Hebrews 13 we learn that the way we treat strangers is important because sometimes we might be entertaining angels in disguise. (By the way, the word translated “hospitality to strangers” is a combination of the words for ‘love’ and ‘immigrant’ (φιλοξενίας), which may be an important thing for Christians to remember in these days when the treatment of immigrants is a constant news story.) But most of the time, they are beyond our ability to see or hear. I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to meet them. I can’t wait to hear the stories of all the times they showed up, bailed me out and held the line. I can’t wait to thank my invisible protectors. It will be yet another reason to thank and praise the Father who loves me so well.