The Angels And You

Elisha prayed and said, “O Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.”
–2 Kings 6:17

In her book “The Hiding Place,” Corrie ten Boom recounts how an angel of God ministered to her in one of the darkest experiences of her life. After being transferred to the German concentration camp known as Ravensbruck, Corrie and her sister, Betsie, like all the prisoners, had to surrender all their medicine. Corrie says she was able to smuggle in a small vial of liquid vitamin. Vitamin deficiency was one of the direst hazards that faced prisoners.

Corrie was tempted to take that vial and hide it for herself and her dying sister Betsie. But how could she do that when there were so many needs? She wrote, “It was hard to say no to the eyes that burned with fever, hands that shook with a chill.” More than 25 prisoners received a daily dose of vitamins from that small vial. She wrote, “Every time I tilted the little bottle, a drop appeared at the top of the glass stopper. It just couldn’t be! I held it up to the light, trying to see how much was left, but the dark brown glass was too thick to see through.” Betsie reminded Corrie about the widow of Zarephath, whose jar of oil miraculously never ran out (1 Kings 17:8-16). Although Corrie never understood how so many drops could come from such a tiny bottle, she believed an angel had been responsible for that overabundance of supply of liquid vitamin.

Accounts like that, as well as hundreds of references to angels in the Bible, should convince us that angels are a very real and powerful force in our world today. As we have seen in this book, angels are not only real, but they minister to us in a variety of ways today.

To me, one of the most encouraging stories about angels in the Bible is in 2 Kings 6. One day, the prophet Elisha found himself surrounded by soldiers who were intent on killing him. When Elisha’s servant awakened and saw the multitude of soldiers, he ran to the prophet and said, in essence, “Look at that big army out there–we are about to die!” But Elisha calmly prayed this prayer on behalf of his terrified servant: “O Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see” (6:17). God opened the eyes of Elisha’s servant–and the servant suddenly looked around and saw a multitude of angels standing there to guard them. The Bible describes the angels like this: “The mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha” (6:18). When the servant’s spiritual eyes were opened to see the angels of God all around him, everything changed.

I pray that your spiritual eyes will be opened so that you, too, can see how God’s mighty angels are helping you throughout your life by providing for you, protecting you, and revealing God’s will to you. And most of all, I pray that you will respond to this biblical understanding of angels by kneeling in gratitude and worship of our Lord Jesus Christ, who created the angels and uses them to minister to you and me both in this life and in the life to come.

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Today’s devotion is excerpted from “The Angels And You” by Dr. Robert Jeffress, 2018.

Corrie ten Boom with John and Elizabeth Sherrill, “The Hiding Place” (New York: Bantam, 1971), 202.

Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960,1962,1963,1968,1971,1972,1973,1975,1977,1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.