Watching Over Me

“Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation?” Hebrews 1:14

Pietro da Cortona (1596-1669) was an Italian painter and architect. One of his most famous paintings is The Guardian Angel, a lavish painting completed in 1656 of a beautiful female angel with wings holding the arm of a child as he walks on a path. The image of a guardian angel has occupied the imagination of countless artists through the years—the most frequent presentation is of an angel in a child’s bedroom guarding the child as she sleeps.

Are such images biblical? Angels themselves certainly are, as is the idea of them guarding the children of God. Angels perform God’s Word (Psalm 103:20) and are sent “to minister for those who will inherit salvation” (Hebrews 1:14). The song many children learn to sing—“All night, all day, angels watching over me”—lays the foundation for a serious biblical truth: Angels are God’s ministering spirits whose assignment is to watch over His children. Keep in mind—“all day and all night”—that you are being watched over by the angels of God. Give God thanks for His angelic protectors and live with conscious, spiritual awareness of their presence.

 “Under Christ, as the head, angels are the guardians of the Church.” John Calvin