Boo! Angels and Where They Find Us

Spirituality Column #259
October 25, 2011
Current in Carmel – Westfield – Noblesville – Fishers
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Boo! Angels and Where They Find Us
By Bob Walters

“You’re going to love this story!” a Christian co-worker recently exclaimed.

I knew immediately this was a Kingdom faith story. A non-Christian would have said, “You’re not going to believe this, but …”

Anyway, my co-worker’s brother Mike (also a believer), slipped and fell – hard – the day before outside a busy gas/convenience store in a small northeastern Indiana town. Mike was numb from the neck down, tingly all over, and unable to move. A friend comforted Mike, told him to lie still, and dialed 9-1-1. A crowd gathered.

Amid the confusion, seemingly out of nowhere, a woman appeared. Telling Mike’s friend she was a nurse, she knelt down, stroked Mike’s hand and quietly, clearly assured him, “You’ll be all right.” Then she walked away.

Everyone’s attention was focused on Mike. The “nurse” came and went without being recognized. Immediately after she left, Mike’s feelings began to return. When the paramedics arrived, Mike was fine.

Certainly, it’s possible the injury was less severe than initially thought. And having been around sports injuries and charitable paralysis foundations, I know “stingers” can come and go quickly.

Or not. A small town and nobody recognized the nurse? She left before the ambulance arrived? (Most nurses would stay.) Mike’s paralysis disappeared just like she did? Gotta’ be a God thing; an angel moment.

My wife and I had a similar “close encounter” this summer when our right-rear tire exploded on northbound I-465 nearing the I-69 high-speed connecting ramp in heavy traffic at 10:30 on a Saturday night. Driving in the middle “thru” lane with no sane way to get to either shoulder, we were forced into the most dangerous place imaginable – that striped, “V” shaped no-man’s land in front of the ramp-split crash/runoff zone.

Needing not to stay there, we crept a hundred yards down the I-69 ramp (not the way home), still situated horribly: on the narrow left shoulder with a disintegrated right-rear tire exposed to whizzing traffic scant feet away. We had a flashlight and a spare tire, but no jack, tire iron or lug wrench (long story).

Suddenly, the way I like to tell it, “Jesus showed up.” A slight, scruff-bearded man in dirty work clothes stopped his old, rusted compact car, backed up the ramp’s left shoulder, dug through his cluttered trunk for loose tools and scattered sockets, grabbed his jack, and changed our tire crouching perilous inches from the speeding ramp traffic. ‘Said he usually drove a tow truck – in Noblesville. With my profuse, astonished thanks and $30 he didn’t ask for (all I had on me), he drove off.

I just love that story.

Walters (email rlwcom@aol.com) encourages people to tell angel stories this Halloween instead of ghost stories.

Thanks is a God Thing

Spirituality Column #159
November 24, 2009
Current in Carmel - Current in Westfield - Current in Noblesville
(Indianapolis north suburban home newspapers)

Thanks is a God Thing
By Bob Walters

Maybe it is so obviously a “God thing” that we don’t give it a second thought, but the simple word “thanks” has little meaning without God.

At least that’s what the Bible seems to say.

We learn early in American life that the magic words of our culture are “please” and “thank you.” “Please” expresses humility and requests a kindness or indulgence; “Thank you” acknowledges a kindness or indulgence.

“Please” appears throughout the Bible (225 times in the NIV), split evenly addressing requests both to God and among people.

“Thanks,” “thank you” and “thanksgiving” show up 144 times, 141 of them referring to God.

This is what convinces me Thanksgiving is a religious holiday.

“Give thanks to the Lord” and “thanks be to God” are two of the most common phrases in the Bible, stretching through both the Old and New Testaments.

“Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, his love endures forever” is a constant refrain in the Old Testament (e.g. Psalm 106:1, 107:1, 118:1 and others), and provides the opening phrase of one of contemporary worship’s most popular songs, “Forever God is Faithful” by Michael W. Smith.

The line, however, does not appear in the New Testament.

Instead, the focus of New Testament “thanks” is very often on food: most especially on our communion with Christ represented by bread and wine. Jesus, the Apostles, the early Christians … never eat without giving thanks to God.

Which brings us to the American holiday of Thanksgiving.

It is a happy, collegial stuff-fest in most homes. We gather with our families and eat too much … surely a blessing of abundance. An even greater blessing is had by the people who feed strangers on Thanksgiving at community feasts.

God has certainly shed great grace on us, but my concern isn’t that we eat too much; it’s that on Thanksgiving, we pray too little, or pray from the wrong point of view.

The worst prayer in the Bible is described in Luke 18:11: “The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men – robbers, evildoers, adulterers – or even like this tax collector.”

How good and pleasing it is to pray a prayer of deep thanks, in faith with humility and love, and not with the Pharisee’s pride.

Pray, and be glad, and give thanks unto the Lord. Happy Thanksgiving.

Walters (www.believerbob.blogspot.com, email rlwcom@aol.com) thanks God daily for the love of his children, the grace of our being and the beauty of this world.