Touched By An Angel Again (3.18.13)

Angels Still Long to See Us Humans Choose Goodness

1Peter1,12: "To them [the prophets] it was revealed that, not to themselves, but to us they were ministering the things which now have been reported to you through those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven- things which angels desire to look into."

Psalm 21,3: "For you meet him [faithful kingers and queeners, see Romans 5,17] with the blessings of goodness; you set a crown of pure gold on his head."

"But we cannot do a show about angels if we don't respect God." Touched By An Angel Executive Producer Martha Williamson, Guidepost Magazine, 1996.

In a channel surfing universe, Touched By Angel (CBS 1994-2003) makes us (still) put down the remote.

It happened to me again, just yesterday.

I know this drill by now, some ten years after the show stopped being produced. The Holy Spirit says the same thing every time:

"Son, put down the remote, you are going to sit and watch this."

God doesn't have to tell me his reasons for everything.

But after sixteen years of learning from this show, at least two of them have settled in my spirit.

Firstly, Touched By Angel reminds me to always be human while serving God, and avoid becoming just an efficient cog in the pastoral machine. That is, this show reminds me to stay alive to human emotions in others (and myself) while pastoring. 

But it's the second reason that makes me write today. 

This show demands that we never forget the power and efficacy of God's goodness, a goodness that outshines all evil (and  all the offspring of Buffy the Vampire Slayer too).   

We underestimate many things about our God, like the fact that he is our almighty King and commands an eternal and hierarchical kingdom of light that includes angels, His spiritual messengers.

We also especially underestimate that he is an all good and an all Holy Spirit, not limited by time and space or by any human pettiness. As an almighty, all good Spirit, His goodness can get right up in our faces, right in the middle of any human business, front and center in any human drama.

And as such, God's almighty goodness can touch and change any human situation.

If we let him!

In Spanish when one person gets too involved in another person's life, that person is "metiche." This is someone (a devil in disguise?) who puts themselves in the center of every drama, is nosy, bossy, won't take a hint, and has fleshy advice to boot.

It's a universal concept.   

In contrast, what "Tess" (Della Reese) and "Monica" (Roma Downey) and "Andrew" (John Dye) and "Gloria" (Valerie Bertinelli), as angels do, is gently and lovingly show that God's goodness can be found in any human situation (where sin abounds grace abounds all the more), but we human beings have to choose this goodness. 

Touched By An Angel again and again respects God's good and gentle but demanding way of doing things. He gently demands again and again that we live by faith, and choose his goodness in every situation. By doing so we human beings become most human and most like him.

It is in this faithful choosing of the good that we also experience the fullest healing of his salvation.

This faithful choosing in our own lives, as in Touched By An Angel, makes for challenging and worthwhile drama, and is something the prophets preach, and the very thing the angels still long to look upon.

more on angels www.zionpentecostmission.com/encounters-with-angels2.html