The Angels on the Road
In the narrative of the patriarch Jacob’s journey towards Canaan we are told that he “went on his way, and the angels of God met him.” And we may be sure that during the journey of this year, we need not go out of the every day track of life in order to find God’s angels. If they come to us, they will come in the ordinary path of our daily avocations. We need expect no miraculous appearances; for our humble lives run along a very plain, prosaic level. When common folks pray, it is not on a Mount Carmel; when we are hungry, God sends to us no ravens; when our faith catches glimpses of our Lord, no blazing cloud surrounds Him as on the peaks of Hermon. Yet as we trudge along the dusty road of duty the angels often meet us, even
22 though our eyes recognize no visitant with the lustre of heaven on his wings.
Our loving Father has many a method of directing our paths. More than one husband has found his good wife, more than one pastor has found the right field of labor, more than one young man has chosen the right occupation, when an unseen hand was guiding them just as truly as an angel pointed Philip toward the town of Gaza From the hill top of a new year I can look back over my own humble pathway and recognize turning points and decisive moments when my whole life was being shaped. No winged messenger met me such as met Cornelius, and bade him send for Peter; but an invisible divine influence had its hold upon my will, ‘’leading me by a path that I knew not.” Every Christian may recall many and many a time in his history when a supernatural power was at work upon him, or a sweet mercy met him, or a deliverance came in an hour of trouble, or a sudden joy flashed on the path in which he was toiling through the mire, or against a 23 driving wind. We speak of ail such experiences as “special Providences.” But if God’s angels are sent to “wait on them who arc the heirs of salvation,” and if they “encamp around them that fear Him,” why may not angelic agencies have been actmg in some mysterious manner upon us?
Our eyes have beheld no celestial visitant as Peter saw one in his prison cell, or as Paul saw one in the tempest-tossed vessel. Neither do we see cur Lord and Saviour with the outward eye. That does not hinder our faith, or make His presence with us one whit less real. “Lo, I am with you,” is the promise of a literal fact if that be not so, our religion is a devout delusion. Let us hold fast to the other and kindred truth that God employs His angels as “ministering spirits” to the humblest and lowliest of His children. If our eyes were opened to the supernatural, perhaps we might behold them as distinctly as Elisha beheld the hosts of chariots and horsemen of fire on the mountain side. Very often we may be entertaining angels unawares 24 when we open our hearts at the call of duty or open our door to the poor in the hour of their need. Our Lord may have had some reference to this great truth when He spoke of “their angels always beholding the face of His Father in Heaven,” and also of the angels as attending the pauper Lazarus up to the bosom of Abraham.
The coming year is unknown to us. We move, in fact, amid mysteries at every step. Unseen things encircle us. If celestial spirits attend us and watch us, how carefully we ought to live! If God gives them charge concerning us, how cheerfully and trustfully we ought to enter upon the journey of the opening year! When we need them most, they may be at hand. Faith has sharp eyes, and endures as seeing the invisible. Faith often wears coarse clothes and works at very lowly occupations — rocking cradles, driving looms, sweeping floors, holding ploughs, teaching poor children and nursing the bed-ridden in garret; faith foots it along a dusty road toward heaven; then let her go singing on 25 her way, for the angels of God are keeping her company. With a brave, trustful heart, good friends, let us grasp the angel’s hand; and if we acknowledge God’s guidance. He will direct our paths aright till we reach our Home.