Was It An Angel?

“Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.”

There have been a few times in my life where I wondered if I had had an encounter with an angel.  One of them, however, stands out as a certainty.

Nearly ten years ago, I was driving by myself on a two-lane road in north Georgia.  It was early in the morning and I was on my way to a speaking event several hours away.  I saw a young man walking on the side of the road carrying a child in his arms.  It struck me as unusual as this was quite remote in its setting.  In my spirit, I thought I heard the Lord say, “Go back and offer this man and his child a ride.” Immediately, I questioned it.  I was a woman traveling by myself and the thought of picking up a strange man seemed reckless and potentially dangerous, even if he did have a baby.  But just days earlier, I had been asking God to teach me radical obedience.  If He spoke, I would obey.  So, after wrestling for a minute with this decision, I turned my car around.

Less than two minutes had passed.  When I reached the place where he should be, he was gone.  I checked and re-checked that mile-long corridor several times, driving back and forth, but he had simply vanished.  I looked for side roads that he might have taken, driveways, even some kind of pull off, but there were none.  He was gone.  I finally concluded that he had been an angel and this had been a test of obedience.

Obviously, I don’t advocate picking up strangers if you are driving alone.  Yet, God often asks us to do things outside the box.  He calls his children to mission work in dangerous places.  When God speaks, we go.

Entertaining angels doesn’t always involve feeding a stranger a meal.  It can take many forms.  But in each case, obedience is what prompts it and obedience is often our greatest test of faith.

I’m still such a novice.  Don’t let me miss an opportunity.  Amen