Praise the Lord, All His Angels!

I was sitting on my back porch the other evening, letting my soul come alive after the long, gray, urban winter, savoring that it was finally warm enough to sit outside, even at night. I had just come from a prayer meeting.

In the throes of the quarantine, our prayer meeting was online. Singing in unison doesn’t work so well on a video call, so instead of our usual singing, we had spent our “worship time” trying something new: reading Psalm 103 out loud together verse by verse and then taking turns paraphrasing it back to the Lord. I loved it. I opened it again now, on the back porch, and reread the phrases that had moved me.

“The Lord works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed…

…The Lord is slow to anger…

…He does not treat us as our sins deserve…

… As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us…

…As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him….

…He knows how we are formed, He remembers that we are dust…”

And then, the last thing that had jumped out at me, David’s final response to all those reasons to praise the Lord:

“Praise the Lord, you his angels,

you mighty ones who do his bidding,

who obey his word.

Praise the Lord, all his heavenly hosts,

you his servants who do his will.

Praise the Lord, all his works

everywhere in his dominion.

Praise the Lord, my soul.” (Psalm 103:20-22).

He took to calling on all God’s angels to come praise the Lord with him! I marveled that while I had never been taught that it is ever OK to address any of our speech to angels, had never heard anyone do it in my growing up years, and had maybe even been told it was bad, scary, wrong, or dangerous to do so, here it was in the Bible. Anyone who just read this psalm out loud would find themselves talking to all the angels in the world!

And I noticed that three times he says these angels are obedient to God.

“Praise the Lord, you his angels,

you mighty ones who do his bidding,

who obey his word.

Praise the Lord, all his heavenly hosts,

you his servants who do his will.”

These are the good, trustworthy angels David was calling on to join in his worship session, and how loyal and trustworthy they are!

Inspired, I looked around my peaceful backyard and said, “Lord, I don’t know how many angels are around me right now, but I invite all of them to praise You with me, because my heart is praising You, Lord. My heart is praising You because…”

I started to thank Him for everything bubbling up within me: the spring warmth, the prayer meeting, the porch where I could be outside, and everything I was grateful for. It kept bubbling up.

Jesus and I talked for a long time, enjoying being together on the porch.

Finally I asked Him, “Would You like to say anything else to me, Lord?”

“No.” I could feel Him smiling. “But your angel would.”

“Sure,” I laughed. I’m comfortable with this now, with Him involving His angel friends, even though I didn’t used to be. I felt my angel settling down beside me like a hug. I snuggled into her. It was such a nice feeling. I tried to think how I would describe it. If the wonderful, wonderful feeling that we call the feeling of the presence of God was like sunlight, I thought, warm and golden and healing, then the feeling of the presence of angels was like the moonlight reflected from that sunlight, silvery and shivery and beautiful. And that seemed about right, since the angels are like us, dependent and created, reflecting back the glory of God the Center, God the Source of it all.

“Thank you for inviting us to join you tonight,” the angel said. I had already forgotten that I had done that.

We sat for a moment, enjoying Him, enjoying each other. Then she spoke again.

“I remember when David first wrote those words.”

I froze in awe. Hanging out with angels is like this, I thought. I start to feel so comfortable with her, just like a good friend, and then she says something like that! And my mind is blown and I can’t speak. And here I am on the porch with God Himself and with beings who remember.

This moment is holy.

When I could finally speak again, I only managed a feeble, silly-sounding, “You’re so old!”

She laughed, all tinkly with holy joy. Her laugh is the loveliest sound you ever heard.

“And you’re so young,” she teased, and added, “And I’m so young compared to Him.” Then she went on with her memories.

“David wrote that, inviting all of us to praise God with him. And of course for us it was the other way around. We were always praising God. It was the human beings who rarely joined us. But we thought it was so sweet and nice, having a human being who finally got a clue and started praising God with us, and so cute that he invited us to join him. So of course we did. And God thought it was cute too, and He put it in the Bible.”

Well, that was a different way of looking at it! But of course, I supposed, that would be the angels’ perspective, wouldn’t it?

I love their perspective. It is such a sweet, sweet gift of my Father in Heaven, that His human children and His angel servants are allowed to be friends. I’ll never stop being grateful.