Be An Angel: Show Others Their Greatness

By Marjorie F. Eddington

Categories: Expressing God, Friendship, Jesus' Commandment - To Love as He Loved, Relationships

We all want to feel good about ourselves. Yet, thoughts of guilt, shame, doubt, hopelessness, or failure can invade our sense of well-being, especially when we let self-condemnation run rampant. Or if others point out our flaws (perhaps with the intent to help us, or perhaps to prove themselves right), or if we hear from others or ourselves that there’s no hope for improvement, nothing we can do about our situation, we can spiral right down into a pit of depression.

How important it is to stop this downward cycle, and to stop it immediately. And we can … by being an angel. We can be a “messenger … to shew unto man [a person] his uprightness” (Job 33:23 KJV). We can open our hearts to “one of a thousand angels” who “comes to our rescue by saying we are innocent” (CEV).

When we rescue ourselves or someone else from hopelessness, we become God’s messengers for light and life, telling others how wonderful, pure, good, innocent, and whole they truly are. We also listen to the angels telling us about our own blessed natures, our own integrity and worth. Valuing ourselves, believing in our own magnificence, loving ourselves is absolutely essential.

Why? We can only love others to the extent that we love ourselves. So if we keep beating up on ourselves for our blunders or for the slow progress we’re making, we will tend to do the same to others. Now, it may not be in the same magnitude, but it is an easy progression. We may not call our children or spouses stupid, as we would call ourselves, but we may point out their flaws; we may show them how they messed up; we may rehearse all the mistakes they made on a given day. And we may do this in the attempt to help them out or just make ourselves feel better.

But criticizing ourselves doesn’t make us feel any better. Rather, it weighs us down. So why do we allow ourselves to be duped by the suggestion that criticizing and condemning others will help them? It’s often just a reaction to our own insecurities, and that can make them feel judged, flawed, not enough, unworthy of love.

If we keep rehearsing others’ flaws, we may come to believe they are actually messed up. What good are we to them then? When others are not able to see through the pain or sorrow of their own situation, they need someone to show them their “uprightness,” their “innocence”.

• To remind them how they’ve expressed love, helped others, been courageous, solved problems, been strong in the face of fear.
• To tell them that they are good through and through because that’s how God made them.
• To comfort them with the knowledge that the Christ is with them, so they have everything they need to overcome challenges.
• To declare that they are enough because God is enough.

We want to be that someone, that messenger, that angel who will lift others’ spirits by showing them their own marvelous being, their pure nature, their God-self. Interestingly, the New King James Version reads, “… to show man His uprightness,” meaning to show God’s nature. So as we keep a clear view of God and God’s nature, we are able to keep a clear view of God’s children and their natures, including ourselves.

And if it seems difficult to see ourselves or others as beautiful and blessed, if we get caught up in a defect or ill-effect, that’s when we most need to listen to the angels telling us that we are all all good, just the way God made us. And we believe them! We stop the negative self-talk and the negative talk in general. We accept God’s view of us so that we show others how God sees them. We see God’s beauty penetrating every part of us or others that seems ugly or shameful, pained or harmful. We allow the light of the Christ, Truth to dispel any dark corners in our thoughts, vision, or bodies.

What’s the result of committing to see ourselves and others as upright and pure? God will “restore them to full well-being” (33:26 NIV); “will deliver his soul from going into the pit” (33:28 KJV). Indeed, God “rescues them from the grave so they may enjoy the light of life” (33:30 NLT). The CEV translates it thus: “God gives each of us chance after chance to be saved from death and brought into the light that gives life” (33:29-30).

May we feel and experience that light. May we be angels on earth and share that light, which lifts and transforms and reveals God’s incredible handiwork, which is each one of us.