I remember the first angel I met. It happened at the outset of our honeymoon as my wife and I traveled down the Amalfi coast in southern Italy. Suddenly the Fiat van we were driving stopped running. No amount of tinkering or praying would restart it.
We knew we had stopped along a dangerous stretch of road on a twisted drive that wound along the beautiful coast just south of Naples. This section of the Amalfi Drive was infamous for its bandits and thieves. If there was a road in southern Italy comparable to the road between Jerusalem and Jericho, this was it. Suzanne and I were mindful of what Jesus said happened to the man on that road.
After the Fiat wheezed its last breath, we set off to find the nearest town, several kilometers away. The area was too dangerous for one of us to stay with the car, so we gathered as many of our belongings as we could carry and put our thumbs in the air to hitch a ride. We were certain this would be the last we would see of our car and the belongings left in it. We wanted only to make it safely to the next town.
As we huddled close to the cobblestone wall separating the narrow road from the cliff dropping precipitously to the sea, we prayed that God would put angels around the car to protect it while we were gone and also send an angel to deliver us safely to the nearest town. Just then a car came screeching around the curve behind our disabled vehicle. The driver saw our thumbs in the air and immediately hit the brakes and wheeled his Alfa Romeo up close to the rock wall. We weren’t sure whether we should run or risk talking to this man. Before we could decide, the Italian driver was out of his car and asked us with a disarming smile, You need a ride to Ravello, don’t you?
We nodded, and the next thing we knew we were on our way.
Our rescuer turned out to be wonderfully kind and gracious. He dropped us off at our hotel and drove away with a warm Ciao, arrivederci! The next words out of my wife’s mouth were, “I think we just rode with an angel.”
I was sure of it.
The next morning we were in no hurry to return to where we had left our van the night before. Figuring it would be vandalized or stolen, we alerted the police before a missionary friend picked us up at the hotel to take us back to assess the damage. As we rounded the last turn, we saw our Fiat parked next to the stone wall. Quickly surveying its condition, we discovered in our hasty departure we had left the rear door unlocked. As we peered inside to see if anything was left, we were shocked to see that nothing had been disturbed. Not even the rear door had been opened. Everything was exactly as we had left it!
Had God indeed given his angels charge over that van to protect it from thieves? It certainly seemed so.
I’ve thought about our “Amalfi angels” often during times of turmoil in ministry. When I’ve felt buffeted by those storms, I’ve found myself again asking God to send his angels of protection and comfort.
Does he respond? Yes, always. Maybe not in the way I would have envisioned or petitioned, but God does care and he does act. We have his Word on it (1 Pet. 5:7). God does not pick and choose which circumstances he will use to execute his will in our lives. Rather, “in all things God works for the good of those who love him” (Rom. 8:28). The challenge is to learn how to recognize God at work and listen to his voice when we’re distracted by the suffering of ministry.
Back when the telegraph was the fastest means of long-distance communication, there was a story, perhaps apocryphal, about a young man who applied for a job as a Morse code operator. Answering an ad in the newspaper, he went to the address that was listed. When he arrived, he entered a large, noisy office. In the background a telegraph clacked away. A sign on the receptionist’s counter instructed job applicants to fill out a form and wait until they were summoned to enter the inner office.
The young man completed his form and sat down with seven other waiting applicants. After a few minutes, the young man stood up, crossed the room to the door of the inner office, and walked right in. Naturally the other applicants perked up, wondering what was going on. Why had this man been so bold? They muttered among themselves that they hadn’t heard any summons yet. They took more than a little satisfaction in assuming the young man who went into the office would be reprimanded for his presumption and summarily disqualified for the job.
Within a few minutes the young man emerged from the inner office escorted by the interviewer, who announced to the other applicants, “Gentlemen, thank you very much for coming, but the job has been filled by this young man.”
The other applicants began grumbling to one another. Then one spoke up, saying, “Wait a minute—I don’t understand something. He was the last one to come in, and we never even got a chance to be interviewed. Yet he got the job. That’s not fair.”
The employer responded, “I’m sorry, but all the time you’ve been sitting here, the telegraph has been clicking out the following message in Morse code: ‘If you understand this message, then come right in. The job is yours.’ None of you heard it or understood it. This young man did. So the job is his.”
God uses many means to demonstrate his care—not only through his Word, his Spirit, and the ministry of Christian friends, but also through more unconventional methods—like burning bushes, talking donkeys, hungry creatures of the sea, visiting angels, or a bright star in the darkened sky. We need only to be alert to these signs. That God cares for us during conflict is certain.
Word and Spirit
I am always amazed at the apostle Paul’s sensitivity to God’s work in his life. He could see the signs of God’s work in the darkest of circumstances. As Paul’s life was drawing to a close in the prison in Rome, he told Timothy that at one point it was only the Lord who stood at his side and gave him strength (2 Tim. 4:17). The believers had deserted him, and Paul was left alone to defend himself against his accusers—but he knew God was strengthening him.
Once I had lunch with a man who had allied himself with a group in the church that was in opposition to me and the staff. This man hadn’t heard the whole story, yet he was sure who needed exhortation. As I listened, I could feel my anger rising and I wanted to set him straight. But before I could launch into my defense, I sensed the voice of the Spirit within me: “Let go of this. I will deal with these accusations.” I reluctantly saved that piece of my mind for another day and left our lunch meeting saying only, “I will give some prayerful thought to what you’ve said.”
Just before noon the next day, this man hurried into my office on his way to a meeting nearby and told me in a whispered tone, “I’m sorry for what I said to you yesterday. I discovered last night that I had listened to only one side of the story and then I jumped to false conclusions.”
Had I not sensed God’s work through the Holy Spirit the day before, I probably would have responded in anger to the accusations, fueling the fire.
Not only have I sensed the Holy Spirit’s nudging during church conflict, I’ve also experienced God’s care through the Word. Passages of Scripture I have read and studied a dozen times have on certain occasions unexpectedly spoken to my soul with new intimacy, power, and relevance. On the other hand, the Holy Spirit has also used sections of Scripture that I am largely unfamiliar with to extend his care for me.
After being terminated from our church, my wife and I attended a pastors’ conference at Sonscape Ministries in Colorado. As I wrote earlier, that time was a wonderful week of renewal and healing for us. One highlight was the evening of worship and Communion. Throughout the day leading up to that evening, the Lord had drawn near to both Suzanne and me through his Word. That evening as we knelt together before the Communion table, we shared with each other the promises that God had given us from the Word during the day—our first opportunity that day to do that.
Earlier that afternoon I had marked in my Bible a powerful promise God had shown me in Isaiah 43. I was anxious to share it with Suzanne. But first I asked her what God had shown her that day. She opened her Bible and read:
But now, this is what the Lord says. … Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. … Since you are precious and honored in my sight, and because I love you, I will give men in exchange for you, and people in exchange for your life. Do not be afraid, for I am with you.
I could not respond to her after she finished reading; I was overcome with emotion. Those were the exact promises from Isaiah 43:1-5 that God had given to me that afternoon to comfort me and encourage me to press ahead amid my doubts about staying in ministry.
I’ve discovered that even when I have not recognized his care immediately, it is still there like the net below a high-wire acrobat. During the course of his act, the acrobat is oblivious to the net below. As the act proceeds and the daring stunts are completed with perfection, the performer has no need to recognize the presence of the net. But when the artist falls, he owes his life to the net. I’ve learned to be more aware of God’s net in my life, to try to see how God is caring for me during hard times. In episodes of conflict, I frequently will begin a day by praying, “Lord, help me to see you at work in and around me today.”
What God often shows me is how he is working through the ministry of other believers in the body of Christ.
Friends like Timothy
The apostle Paul was certainly aware of the care of other believers. His letters are a record of his gratitude to others—Epaphroditus (Phil. 2:25), Timothy (Phil. 2:19ff), Tychicus (Col. 4:7), Aristarchus, Mark, Justus (Col. 4:10ff), and Luke (2 Tim. 4:11), to name just a few.
Sometimes those who have cared for me have been those I would have expected. Other times God has surprised me with someone unexpected, and I’ve wondered, Where did that person come from? The days after the phone call informing me of my termination from ministry were unbearably long. I can hardly remember the events of that first week, the shock of being cut off from my work, even my calling, was so great.
I can recall, though, one day in that week—Wednesday evening. As my wife and I sat in our living room that evening, the phone finally rang. It was a call from a friend who is a Christian counselor. Our families had been close friends when they lived in our city, but since they had moved back East two years before, we had kept in touch only through Christmas cards. Because of our infrequent contact, I knew he wasn’t calling about the crisis at hand; he had no way of knowing. He was calling to say hello and to get the phone number of a mutual friend.
I asked my wife if she could find the phone number he wanted. We continued to chat, and lie suddenly stopped mid-sentence and asked carefully, “By the way, are you guys okay? Maybe there’s more reason for my call than getting that phone number.”
“Funny you should ask,” I said, “and even stranger that you would call tonight …”
For the next thirty minutes he listened, prayed, and spoke a few well-chosen words of love and encouragement. When we finally said good-bye, it felt like I had fallen straight into the net below me. The call was like receiving a direct message from God.
For a few minutes after I hung up the phone, Suzanne and I reflected on God’s care through that friend. The phone rang again. It was the same friend.
“I really did call earlier just to get that phone number,” he said. “Do you have it?”
In addition to care that has seemed like direct intervention by God, I’ve also been strengthened from a small band of friends who have walked with me through life over the years. The older I get the more thankful I am for such friends. The apostle Paul, too, had friends who rallied around him during hard times. When Paul was a lonely prisoner facing his final days in the Mamertine Prison in Rome, he asked for Timothy. That faithful friend had knit his heart with Paul’s. They had been together from the early days of Paul’s missionary ministry. As comrades they had navigated the waters of the Aegean Sea and traversed the countryside of Macedonia. It was to Timothy that Paul had entrusted his beloved flock of Ephesus. If anyone cared for Paul and would be there at the end, it was Timothy. He knew even the very coat that Paul missed and wanted to have returned—the one he had left at Carpus’s home in Troas.
More important, Paul needed the scrolls and parchments. The documents were among his most treasured possessions. The coat was practical, but the parchments were essential. Those portions of Scripture would bring ultimate comfort to Paul as he read the psalms of David, the wisdom of Solomon, and the exhortations of the prophets. Timothy could be trusted to carry those treasures.
Finally, Paul confessed that he needed Timothy—not for what Timothy could bring him or do for him. He needed Timothy, his friend.
“Timothy, I need you to come and be with me. And do your best to get here before winter.”
As far as we know, those were Paul’s final written words, directed to a friend who was like no other.
God has sent to me Timothy-like friends, whose care has come in many forms—a note, a phone call, a financial gift, or simply the opportunity to withdraw in solitude to their vacation home. I’ve even sensed their care when they have looked me in the eye and told me where they thought I might be off track in what I had said or done.
Suzanne and I have talked about how rare in pastoral ministry those kinds of relationships are. Too often we are seen as set apart from ordinary believers in the church—not “ordinary” enough to befriend. I have tried to dispel that myth, but cultivating friendship in pastoral work requires a special commitment. I have made a conscious effort to spend time with Christian men inside and outside the church with whom I have sensed a connection. When I find someone I think I can reveal my heart to, it’s as if I have discovered gold.
In the past year, our church has been experiencing a bit of God’s pruning. From the custodian to my closest associate pastor, every staff member has moved on. The reasons have seemed legitimate: marriage, spouse job relocation, graduate school, physical impairment, and a different ministry calling. But the effect on the church has been huge. People are feeling uncertain, disconnected, dispirited, and a bit fearful about the future. I share much of their emotional and spiritual malaise.
Shortly after the resignations began, a friend in the church asked me after the Sunday worship service, “Can I come by this week and pray with you?” He came by on Tuesday morning, and our time together stretched well into the afternoon; we talked and prayed intermittently for several hours. When he left he said, “I’d like to do this with you again next week, if you have the time.” The next Tuesday we prayed together a second time.
Over the ensuing weeks, that person became my confidant. He has been relentless in his care and in gathering other men around me to pray for me and to voice their support and encouragement. Not a week goes by that he doesn’t send a note or make a phone call to me in addition to our regular prayer times. His family has taken a special interest in our family; we have become a part of their morning prayer circle as they ask God to protect and bless us.
They are God’s net, spread beneath us during this time of testing and trial. Had I not learned to recognize how God cares for us during previous difficult times, I would see them only as concerned friends. Or I might be a bit more cynical and view them suspiciously, wondering if they have a hidden agenda. But now I see them as agents of God himself.
By taking the risk of letting others care for us, we can reap lasting rewards. In addition to the obvious benefit of a true friendship is the joy of experiencing in their care the work of God. Angels come in many guises.
Copyright © 1998 Gary D. Preston
