Timidly she approached me after all the other youth had emptied the room. Her question was nothing to be embarrassed of, yet she still hesitated asking it. She slowly muttered, “My friends tell me that angels are not real… that they only exist in movies n’ stuff.” Then, in a sort of whisper so no one would hear her, she said, “But I think they do exist, I think they have helped me before… is that wrong?”
Asking the question about angel’s existence is not wrong and it’s not some childish question. I think we all have wondered at one point or another if Angels really do exist and even more so, if we have ever encountered one. Though in our minds we may think of angels as some ghost-like creatures, they are very real and very active – the Bible makes that clear in the Old and New Testament (Gen. 19:1; 19:15, 28:12; 32:1; Ps. 91:11; 2 Thes. 1:7; Heb. 13:2) .
You see there are two sorts of personal beings that God has created: humans and angels. And these angels are created for the service of God and are often referred to as his “messengers” int eh Old and New Testament, like the accounts recorded in Genesis or when the Angel appeared to mary to tell her she would give birth to Christ. .
This young girl who asked me about the angels told me a story about a nurse that showed up at her bed side when she was in critical care in the hospital, but then when asking for her by name later to the hospital staff, they told her that there was no one that even worked there by that name. She was sure that this woman must have been an angel.
I’m not sure about that specific incident, but we are told through out the Bible that angels are intelligent moral agents and they can show themselves to humans in what appears as a physical body.
But let’s not get caught up on figuring out the mysterious stories, or where and how angels move; it is more important for us to understand why God created angels: the primary purpose angels exist is to bring glory to God. Then we can comprehend that one of the main ways they bring glory to God is by protecting believers (Psalms 34:7; 91:11).
How breath-taking is it to know that our Great God – who is already more than sufficient in and of himself – has created and provided supernatural agents to be his messengers and our protectors!
What do you think about angels? Do you believe they are active and at work in your life?
