The angel of the Lord encamps
    around those who fear him, and delivers them. Psalm 37:4 ESV

You need to know that I have never seen an angel, but I believe in them. Yet the entire concept of angels seems pretty strange to me. Why would an all powerful God who can command light into existence and who holds every atom in the universe together by the power of His word, want to use angels to do stuff? And yet, the Bible tells us that, God chooses to employ angels to take care of us.

When our kids were still in diapers and credit cards were only issued to folks who didn’t need them we struggled financially. Though we had enough to pay for our groceries, rent and the electric bill, by the end of the month, there was nothing left over. Each morning as I got the car, glanced at the front tires, which were daily growing balder, I breathed another prayer and put the key in the ignition. Every afternoon when I pulled back up into our parking spot, I racked my brain trying to figure how we could squeeze a few dollars together, then put it out of my mind, picked up my lunch box and trudged back up the stairs to our apartment.

Though we didn’t have much mullah, we did have plenty of friends. One of those was a confirmed bachelor named Bob and my wife insisted that we invite him over for dinner at least once a week. She worried that otherwise he would never eat a decent meal. Bob became like an uncle to our boys and they loved nothing better than running full speed and jumping onto his lap unexpectedly, then laughing hysterically as he let out a loud groan. Regularly, Bob would remind me about those tires, and regularly I would tell him that we would get to it next month. But whether it was an unexpected doctor’s visit or a new pair of shoes for our growing boys, it seemed “next month” never came.

All the time I worried about those bald tires I never once thought about praying for new ones. Not that I doubted God, but it simply never occurred to me to trouble the almighty with mundane issues like tread wear. He probably had important stuff to do like taking care of orphans in Africa or rescuing beggars in India. But one day I discovered that God isn’t too busy to notice even the tiniest problem we face while He is taking care of folks with bigger issues. He sends angels to camp out around us, to help in every struggle we face.

It was a Sunday morning and just as always we scrubbed up the boys and squeezed them into their church clothes then headed off for the 11 AM service. I put my worry about the tires into the back of my mind convinced I could only pray about life threatening issues. Yes I know I should have prayed but I am glad that our Father in Heaven doesn’t always do things according to formula. I have no idea what our pastor preached that morning, but engraved forever in my mind was the miracle of two brand new tires sitting at the top of our stairs on our return. Yes our angel that day actually was named Bob, but I’m pretty sure that he was enlisted into the service of the ones with wings. What was best of all was the astonishingly wonderful discovery that God knew and cared and sent angels to take care of every detail like stubbing our toe or getting a flat. God wanted me to know that whether He was washing my dirty feet, leaving tires on our stairs or dying on the cross for my sins, that He loves us all completely, in every detail and forever!

Two Tires On the Stairs by Peter Caligiuri copyright 2021 Use by permission only, all rights reserved.