Un-Christmas Angels

I always finish a post or article by Andree Seu convicted. Here's part of one (but honor her by going to the website for the full piece):

Humpty Dumpty, sporting a cravat he received from the King and Queen for his unbirthday, has little Alice calculate the number of unbirthdays in a year (Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass). This is a far better deal—by 364 to 1—than merely celebrating on one’s birthday.

Heretofore, most of us have celebrated angels only once a year, at Christmas, which makes me suspicious....My hunch is that the frequency of mention of a particular Bible doctrine is an indicator of the credulity with which it is held. That is, we believe enough in angels for the holidays but not enough to make them a practical part of our lives.

The author of Hebrews says angels are a practical part of our lives: They are “ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation” (1:14). How do they serve us? I suppose, in the usual ways—they put a hedge of protection around us (2 Kings 6:16); they block our paths (Numbers 22:23); they are dispatched with messages in answer to prayer (Daniel 10:12) when they are not occupied fighting unclean spirits, principalities, and powers elsewhere (Daniel 10:13).

Like Humpty's celebration of "un-birthdays," I'd like to go into 2010 with a commitment to have a year-long reflection of God's ministering spirits.