The other night some friends and I got talking about angels and demons – not the Dan Brown book but the real deal. Although, that depends which friend was doing the talking! One guy didn’t believe in any of it, especially Satan, yet another shuddered at the mention of that name which in her opinion is better off not said out loud. Some friends were right into the idea of some other world of spiritual beings fighting it out or hovering around us like so often seen in Hollywood movies. Maybe you can identify with some of these reactions as I bring up this topic this morning.
Hearing everyone talk reminded me of how often we think of a spiritual world, full of spiritual things, spiritual concerns and spiritual beings, and then our world – physical, full of physical concerns and physical beings. The spiritual world might come into our world, but in the form of guardian angels outside our door or spirits whispering sinful ideas into our ears. I’m not discounting these things at all, but what if the spiritual world comes into our world through a much more basic level – through us, through me?
All this makes me think of a story my grandmother would tell. About to head out as a young woman, alone, on a German boat just before the war she clung to this promise in Exodus chapter 23 verse 20 –
“See, I am sending an angel before you to protect you on your journey and lead you safely to the place I have prepared for you.”
She couldn’t have needed that angel more than when she left the boat in Cartagena, suddenly surrounded by shouting, pushing taxi men, speaking in a language she couldn’t understand, attempting to get her into their taxis. During all of this a couple, passengers on the boat who she hadn’t met before, approached her and the wife asked if she would like to spend the day with them. She agreed, thankfully, and as she hopped into their taxis the women turned to her husband, saying ‘This is my husband. Jimmy Angel.”
The Angel’s were to go on to discover the Angel Falls on the Vezuelan border and my grandmother went on to be a missionary in South America, telling this story. And so I go on with my morning wondering how God might use me, spirit and body, in this world today.
