January 11

Messengers from God

And when Zacharias saw him, he was troubled, and fear fell upon him. — Luke 1:12

Yet the angel had come on an errand of love, — had come to announce to Zacharias tidings which would fill his heart with great joy. It is often so. All through the Bible we find that people were afraid of God’s angels. Their very glory startled and terrified those to whom they appeared. It is ofttimes the same with us. When God’s messengers come to us on errands of grace and peace, we are terrified, as if they were the messengers of wrath.

Angels do not appear to us in these days in their heavenly garb. They come no less really and no less frequently than in the Bible days; but they wear other and various forms. Sometimes they appear in robes of gladness and light, but ofttimes they come in dark garments. Yet our faith in our Father’s love should make us confident that every messenger that He sends to us, whatever the garb, brings something good to us.

“All God’s angels come to us disguised,—
Sorrow and sickness, poverty and death,
One after other lift their frowning masks,
And we behold the seraph’s face beneath,
All radiant with the glory and the calm
Of having looked upon the face of God,

The things which we call trials and adversities are really God’s angels, though they seem terrible to us; and if we will only quiet our hearts and wait, we shall find that they are messengers from heaven, and that they have brought blessings to us from God. They have come to tell us of some new joy that is to be granted, — some spiritual joy, perhaps, to be born of earthly sorrow, some strange and sweet surprise of love that is waiting for us. We want to learn to trust God so perfectly that no messenger He ever sends shall alarm us.