Angelic Visitations

The Bible teaches “some people have entertained angels without knowing it” (Hebrews 13:2).  The once popular television series, “Touched By An Angel,” lent credence to the idea that angels come to our aid in every day life.  Craft stores still feature a wide array of angel displays. 

Some years ago a pastor’s daughter living in Idaho wrote a book entitled, “The Man Who Talked with Angels.”   Readers thrilled to learn about the late Rev. Roland Buck’s late night angelic encounters.  The book was the sequel to “Angels on Assignment” by Charles and Frances Hunter, as told by Pastor Buck.  These were incredible accounts written by credible ministers of the Gospel!

Those who know me say I’m analytical.  I’m cautious not to over-sensationalize the Gospel.  But when it comes to angels I’m eager to share the following stories.

In late November of 1977, Lori and I encountered an angelic visitation on the outskirts of Walnut, Mississippi.  We, along with another couple, were returning to Springfield, Missouri from Gadsden, Alabama, following our Thanksgiving break from college.  Our timing was bad, as that remote part of Mississippi had just been blanketed with an unseasonably heavy ice storm.

The battery died in our 1966 Plymouth.  It was approximately 2:00 a.m. and we were stranded on an icy hillside.  The night air was crisp and the snow crackled under our feet.  The icy conditions made it impossible to walk and we had no heat.  After we panicked, we prayed!

From time to time, we tried to start the car but the battery remained too weak to turn over the engine.  We wondered what to do when a vehicle approached from the direction of town.  Two men appeared in a city truck.  Unfortunately, they carried no battery cables with them.  While conversing with these men, a third man suddenly appeared.  He was dressed like the others so we thought nothing of this interloper.

While conversing with the original two men, our car unexpectedly started.  “There you go,” said the third man.  And then he vanished!  The two puzzled city workers asked us if we knew “that man.”  “We assumed he was with you,” we replied.  This event took place almost 41 years ago and we still rejoice over God’s goodness to us that night in freezing, remote Walnut, Mississippi.  Heaven dispatched an angel with mechanical abilities and dressed him like a city employee.  We unknowingly entertained a heavenly visitor!

Our second angel intervention took place a few years later.  Like many newly married couples, Lori and I wrestled with finances.  Our money seemed to run out before each month!  Somehow I had obtained a car loan.  We thought we were in “high cotton,” that is, until we got behind in our monthly payments.  We tried our best, but eventually the bank threatened repossession.  It’s not that we wouldn’t pay; we just didn’t have the money. 

Evidently, God grew weary of my incessant begging and dispatched an angel to help us.  A letter from the bank came in the mail one day and when I saw the return address, I placed it on a high shelf.  Out of sight, out of mind!  However, I could not get that letter off my mind and with trepidation finally faced the inevitable.

When I opened the envelope, I saw stamped across the top of the original loan papers, “Paid in full.”  When I called the bank, the loan officer told me a distinguished looking gentleman had walked into the bank and paid the balance in cash.  Again, heaven dispatched an angel to meet a desperate need.  By the way, the first two angels were older gentlemen who had white hair! (Perhaps the same angel!)

The next angel story is my favorite.  When our oldest daughter, Sarah, was a toddler, she climbed a tall stool while playing on my wife’s grandparents’ concrete patio.  I was standing at the opposite corner of the patio not paying attention, when I turned around just in time to see my baby girl lose her balance and fall head first to the floor.  I had time only to cry out, “Jesus!”

Unseen hands caught her midair and lowered my child to the floor.   She was placed on the concrete like a mother gentling placing her baby on a bed.  Sarah was spared from serious injury or worse. 

Do you believe in angels?  I believe we all entertain them unaware. I can tell you that angels have been spotted in Walnut, Mississippi, Birmingham, Alabama, and Lebanon, Indiana; and I’m sure in your sphere of life, too!

The Process

Occasionally, people approach me for help and want me to fix in five minutes what it’s taken perhaps many years to “break.”  They’re looking for the big event and the quick fix.

Even God needed time to redeem the earth!  Two-thousand years passed between Creation and Abraham; another two-thousand years passed from Abraham to Christ, and another two-thousand-plus years from Christ to our day.  And redemption’s scheme still hasn’t played out completely.  The devil is still on the prowl.  “Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8b). 

Don’t get me wrong.  I thank God for the “big events” in the Christian life.  I was born again on August 4, 1970, baptized in the Holy Spirit on July 22, 1971 and baptized in water on August 18, 1974.  Because of my fear of water, it took me four years to work up the nerve to get “dunked.”  And even then I positioned a pastor on each side of me to secure my re-entry from the waters of the Grand River in Rock Creek!

I’m thankful when God answers a prayer or grants me a hallmark experience.  Those times ignite my faith and move me toward higher levels in God. 

Long ago, the night skies outside of Bethlehem suddenly lit up when an angel made earth’s greatest birth announcements to a group of unsuspecting shepherds. “And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night.  An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified” (Luke 2:8-9).

In A.D. 29, 120 believers in Jesus Christ were gathered together in an upper room somewhere in Jerusalem when sounds from heaven suddenly filled the atmosphere.  “When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.  Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting” (Acts 2:1-2).

The first “suddenly” of God announced the birth of a Savior.  The second “suddenly” signaled the birth of the Church. While we marvel at the big events in the Christian life, we must never forget that the intricacies of the Faith are hammered out on the anvil of time.  Salvation is both an event and a process.  I was saved, I’m being saved, and I will ultimately be saved.  Like you, I’m in process of “becoming.”  Remember, we’re human “beings.”

John 1:40-42 is a particularly meaningful passage to me.  “Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two who heard what John had said and who had followed Jesus.  The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, ‘We have found the Messiah (that is, the Christ)’ And he brought him to Jesus.  Jesus looked at him and said, ‘You are Simon, son of John.  You will be called Cephas, which translated, is Peter.’” 

Jesus saw not only who Simon WAS, but who he WOULD BECOME.  That’s why He gave him a new name – Cephas in Aramaic, Peter in Greek.  Either way, both names mean “a rock.”  Peter, of course, is not presented in the Gospels as rock-solid, but he became a solid rock in the days of the Early Church.  By giving Simon a new name Jesus introduced a progressive change in character. 

Jesus looked past the Simon of “today” and saw the Peter of “tomorrow.”  He saw untapped potential.  That’s the way he sees us, too!  Don’t allow the process of you becoming more like Jesus to make you impatient.  Know that the good work He began in you will come to fruition.

Divine Assignments

I believe God schedules divine appointments as we daily interact with people.  We who walk with the Master cross paths with untold numbers of people who briefly yet decisively impact our lives.  Along the way, we are issued assignments from the Throne!

While pastoring in Alabama, one day I stopped at an Exxon station to fill up my tank.  When I went to pay the cashier, I discovered that I had left my wallet at home.  God knew my heart and I’m sure smiled at my “senior moment.”  A total stranger, who just happened to be a Baptist pastor, was also standing at the counter.  Upon hearing my dilemma and sensing my embarrassment, he paid for my gas. 

When I introduced myself and offered to exchange addresses, he replied, “God sent me to help you.  I did not need gas but God told me to pull in here to help a fellow pastor.”  Our encounter was brief and amazing.  He paid my bill, wished me well and drove away.  I had been the recipient of both a divine encounter and assignment from the Throne.

Another divine appointment took place when I attended youth camp in the summer of 1970.  There I met a counselor named Dan Parker.  He was in his early twenties at the time, a man of obvious compassion – the kind of guy whose natural charisma made me feel special and accepted.  He took a keen interest in each of the eight boys in our camp cabin. 

I went to camp feeling insecure and backwards.  Not being athletic like the other boys, I had difficulty making friends.  In short, I was socially awkward.  And to make matters worse, I did not know Jesus.

On Monday evening of camp, the Holy Spirit dealt beautifully with me but I resisted His convicting power.  I left the service, went back to my cabin and cried myself to sleep.  The next morning Dan sat with me at breakfast.  He took a personal interest in me, asking about my family, my interests and hobbies.  He poured into the life of a 14-year-old country boy!  And he gave me glimpses into his life.

As we walked to the camp tabernacle for the morning Bible study, Dan reminded me how special I was to God.  He assured me that God had a plan for my life.  Then he placed his arm around me.  “I’m praying for you,” he said. 

That evening I surrendered my life to Jesus Christ. Dan wept and rejoiced with me.  He hugged me and told me how proud he was of my decision to live for the Lord. 

I’ve thought about Dan Parker many times over the past 47 years, wondering where life took him.  After camp I lost contact with my wonderful counselor, but somewhere there’s a man who crossed my path, touched me and walked away.  Heaven has record of that divine appointment and completed assignment. 

I wonder what MY next assignment will be!         

The Cross-Stitch

In all probability, March 7 holds little or no significance for you.  It’s just another day.  However, our lives were forever altered on March 7, 1995.  My wife’s parents left home that morning never to return.  They were involved in a fatal car crash.

My in-laws were pastors.  They left home that dismal, rainy morning to make a hospital call in Indianapolis, Indiana.  Just south of Frankfurt another minister ran a stop sign and broadsided them, forcing their car into the side of a waiting eighteen wheeler at the four-way stop.  Dad died on impact and Mom succumbed to her injuries five weeks later.

Accidents change our lives forever.  No one is ever ready for such news. 

In a split second we lost dad, grandpa, son, brother, pastor, mentor and friend to many.  Mom planned his funeral then lapsed into a coma when she heard that his service and committal were over.  After a thirty-five day hospital vigil, the family also laid mom to rest.    

No one fully understands or explains tragedy.  Bad things happen to wonderful people.  It rains on the just and the unjust.  Even Job, perhaps the Bible’s premiere example of suffering, remained clueless as to the “why’s.”  Chuck Swindoll wrote, “God is too kind to do anything cruel, too wise to make a mistake, and too deep to explain Himself.”  At times, the faith walk leads us into inexplicable depths. 

Dale and Jean Owens were preparing to celebrate their 40^th wedding anniversary on Saturday.  The accident occurred on Tuesday, when celebration turned to mourning.  Even though March 7, 2018 will mark 23 years since the accident, it still hurts to think about it.  My wife’s grandmother said at Dad’s funeral, “It’s just not right.  Parents should never have to bury their children.”

A cross-stitch wall hanging in our home depicts a winter scene with trees and a full moon in the background.  My mother-in-law gave it to me for Christmas in 1986.  The inscription on the back reads, “To Roger.  When this you see, think of me.”

I still fight back tears when I look at it.  And oh, how I miss them.  This cross-stitch is a bittersweet reminder of better days.  Have you lost a loved one?  Do painful memories continue to well up inside when you think back? 

I still remember walking away from two fresh graves, contemplating the many ways that Mom and Dad Owens impacted my life.  I was privileged to be their son-in-law for 19 years.  The pastor who officiated their wedding 40 years prior said, “Look, there’s ‘Resurrection Row.’”  Today four graves line side by side – my in-laws, and my wife’s maternal grandparents.  All of them awaiting the trumpet blast:  “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first…” (1 Thessalonians 4:16).

This priceless cross-stitch wall hanging still incites me to sadness, but then my heart fills with resurrection joy, as I’m reminded that some day there’s going to be a meeting in the air.  Mom and Dad, along with saints from across the ages, will rise first before those alive on the earth at the time – to meet Jesus in the air.  I plan to be in that meeting!