We Never Go Alone

I started today thinking about angels. I got into this when I read Psalm 72:6 describing our Lord Jesus, the ultimate Son of David, both God and Man, as rain that falls on the mown grass. Since I grew up on a farm the smell of newly mown hay, especially when a soft rain falls upon it, came at once to mind. As I write the sweet, fresh smell of mown grass remains with me.


Anyway, that got me to thinking about growing things and especially now that the trees, grasses and flowers around me are all coming back to life. Springtime has come to Spring, Texas where I live. I love this time of the year. Not only are the plants coming alive, but many of the animals are giving birth. Life is springing forth.


What part do the angels, those unseen spirit-messengers, play in all this wonder? Several Bible verses come to mind, but I focus upon but one today:  Psalm 104:4 - He makes his messengers winds, his ministers a flaming fire.


The Hebrew for wind is ruakh, a word that can indeed refer to wind or air, but also to the inner impulses or dispositions of one's ruakh or spirit, resulting in courage, anger or patience. So Ecclesiastes 7:9 tells us not to be hasty in our ruakh to be angry. Does that also mean that angels who are ruakh, can influence our ruakh?


There's an interesting story told by the prophet Micaiah in 2 Chronicles 18:18-22 about the Lord sending a spirit (ruakh) from the host of heaven to be a lying spirit in the mouth of Israel's King Ahab's prophets. As a result, his prophets told him to go to battle against Ramoth-gilead, a city controlled by the Aramean kingdom of Damascus. Ahab died in that battle from an arrow wound. Thus God's judgment came upon him because of his unbelief, but the deception was carried out by an angelic spirit influencing the spirits of Ahab's advisors.


That makes me wonder about the multitudinous and many faceted tasks of God's angelic messengers. How deeply they are involved in the goings on of this world. Ponder it yourself. They can—and do—influence and control the thoughts of men, both evil and good. They shut the mouths of the lions when Daniel was thrown into the lion's den (Daniel 6:22). An angel brought the enslaved children of Israel out of Egypt (Numbers 20:16).


How comforting and empowering it is to know that as we walk in the paths laid out for us by our Lord, He gives his angels the command to guard us in all our ways (Psalm 91:11-13). Our ways refers not only to the outward journeys we take, but also to the decisions we make to go on those journeys, inward or outward. So we join the psalmist to pray "Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth" (Psalm 86:11). As we go, we each have a guardian angel commanded by our Lord to accompany us. We walk not alone.