Angels

What do you think about angels? Any Christian will tell you that they exist. Some may have a story that they've heard or read about involving somebody seeing an angel. Do you believe that angels are still at work today? More importantly, do you believe that angels are still at work today for you? Personally, I hardly think about angels and am not as educated on the subject as I'd like to be. I believe that there is spiritual warfare going on all around me, but I rarely think about it affecting my life.

In Acts 12, Peter is in jail and the church is earnestly praying for him (verse 5). When is the last time you or I earnestly prayed for anything? What does earnestly even mean? Well good thing you asked, because I looked it up! Earnestly means serious in intention, purpose or effort. Another definition is showing depth and sincerity of feeling. If I am honest with myself, I can't recall the last time I was that serious about a prayer. Anyways, back to the story. An angel came to Peter and broke him out of jail. The angel vanished and Peter went to a house where people had gathered to pray for him. He knocked on the door and a servant girl recognized his voice and ran to the others to tell them Peter was at the door. Now look at their response in verse 15, "You're out of your mind," they told her. When she kept insisting that it was so, they said, "It must be his angel."

This strikes me as a very odd reaction to what is going on. The people had enough faith to believe that Peter's angel was at the door, but could not fathom Peter being at the door. Because the people were earnestly praying, they fully believed that God would send an angel for Peter. Notice that nobody jumped up and ran to the door to see what an angel looks like. The next verse actually says that Peter kept knocking. Everybody kept going about their business when they assumed that there was an angel outside of their door. The mood I get from this story is that they are treating an angel of the Lord like the next door neighbor needing a cup of sugar. The only justification for this response that I can think of is that angels were very common for the early believers. Everybody at that house probably had seen angels at work in their lives.

What about us? Why aren't their more stories about angels doing miraculous things in our lives? Do we not pray earnest enough? Do we not have enough faith? I don't know the answers to these questions, but I would love to be able to have an experience of my own about angels. If you have a personal story about angels or can point me to some good passages in the Bible on how and when angels work, please share them with me! This kind of stuff intrigues me and I would like to be more educated on the topic.