{"id":1295,"date":"2019-04-14T11:41:17","date_gmt":"2019-04-14T11:41:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/?p=1295"},"modified":"2019-04-14T11:41:17","modified_gmt":"2019-04-14T11:41:17","slug":"the-angels-viewpoint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2019\/04\/the-angels-viewpoint.html","title":{"rendered":"The Angel&#8217;s Viewpoint"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The angels sat around drinking their heavenly coffee and discussing the last thirty years.They had been horrified when the Heavenly Father sent their precious Jesus to earth &#8211; that blue ball inhabited by rebellious people.<\/p>\n<p>The Father had confined Jesus to the womb of a teenage girl then He was squeezed thorough a birth canal, wrapped in rags and put in a feeding trough! What on earth was God thinking?<\/p>\n<p>They were thrilled to show the glory of heaven as they declared the good news: &#8220;Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, good will to men.&#8221; But why to just a small number of  smelly shepherds who then ran to see the baby Jesus. <\/p>\n<p>This seemed like an odd way to announce the birth of a King. But they trusted the wisdom of God.<\/p>\n<p>Then 3 kings had shown up to bring very expensive gifts and pay homage. That was more like it! After all, this was the darling of heaven.This was the second person of the Trinity &#8211; it was about time He was treated royally!<\/p>\n<p>It did&#8217;t last long. The evil Herod in his jealous rage ordered all babies two and under to be killed. They warned Joseph in a dream. The family had to flee to safety. The heavenly host guarded the young family as they traveled to Egypt.<\/p>\n<p>They watched Him learn to walk and run. They laughed at His antics and smiled as He took His first steps. They watched with pride as He helped his earthly father in the carpenter&#8217;s shop.<\/p>\n<p>They hovered near as the family went to Jerusalem and then listened in as He talked with the Rabbis, impressing them with His wisdom. Of course! He had the wisdom of the ages! He was the Ancient of Days!<\/p>\n<p>The last three years had been interesting as He got involved in people&#8217;s messes. He had healed all sorts of maladies, even raised Lazarus to life. He had taught from the hillside &#8211; but the people seemed not to understand what He was talking about when He told them they were blessed when they mourn, and should rejoice when persecuted. <\/p>\n<p>What He taught was upside down: to gain their life they had to lose it; to live they had to die. They loved the times He multiplied the fish and bread to feed so many hungry people! That was fun.<\/p>\n<p>The Scribes and Pharisees were a pain and always tried to trip Jesus up. They couldn&#8217;t. It made them mad. They&#8217;d have to keep an eye on them.<\/p>\n<p>They liked to watch Jesus fish with His buddies. Peter was a character &#8211; they enjoyed his impetuousness. Like when Jesus had been transfigured and he wanted to build three tabernacles. And Peter seemed to get it when he declared Jesus was the Son of God. But there was one that seemed a bit squirrelly &#8211; Judas. He wasn&#8217;t like the others.<\/p>\n<p>But today as they entered Jerusalem the people sang and waved palm branches and threw their coats on the path for Him to ride over. Maybe, at long last, the folks were catching on!<\/p>\n<p>The angels rejoiced. This was going to be a good week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The angels sat around drinking their heavenly coffee and discussing the last thirty years.They had been horrified when the Heavenly Father sent their precious Jesus to earth &#8211; that blue ball inhabited by rebellious people. The Father had confined Jesus to the womb of a teenage girl then He was squeezed thorough a birth canal,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":466,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[366,367,115,254,256,365],"class_list":["post-1295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-angels","tag-confusion","tag-god","tag-heaven","tag-jesus","tag-palm-sunday"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Angel&#039;s Viewpoint - Safe Place with Ruth Graham<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2019\/04\/the-angels-viewpoint.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Angel&#039;s Viewpoint - Safe Place with Ruth Graham\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The angels sat around drinking their heavenly coffee and discussing the last thirty years.They had been horrified when the Heavenly Father sent their precious Jesus to earth &#8211; that blue ball inhabited by rebellious people. The Father had confined Jesus to the womb of a teenage girl then He was squeezed thorough a birth canal,&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2019\/04\/the-angels-viewpoint.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Safe Place with Ruth Graham\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-04-14T11:41:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ruth Graham\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Angel's Viewpoint - Safe Place with Ruth Graham","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2019\/04\/the-angels-viewpoint.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Angel's Viewpoint - Safe Place with Ruth Graham","og_description":"The angels sat around drinking their heavenly coffee and discussing the last thirty years.They had been horrified when the Heavenly Father sent their precious Jesus to earth &#8211; that blue ball inhabited by rebellious people. The Father had confined Jesus to the womb of a teenage girl then He was squeezed thorough a birth canal,&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2019\/04\/the-angels-viewpoint.html","og_site_name":"Safe Place with Ruth Graham","article_published_time":"2019-04-14T11:41:17+00:00","author":"Ruth Graham","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2019\/04\/the-angels-viewpoint.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2019\/04\/the-angels-viewpoint.html","name":"The Angel's Viewpoint - Safe Place with Ruth Graham","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/#website"},"datePublished":"2019-04-14T11:41:17+00:00","dateModified":"2019-04-14T11:41:17+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/#\/schema\/person\/76d20e190c3b83823997a9f422b86975"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2019\/04\/the-angels-viewpoint.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2019\/04\/the-angels-viewpoint.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2019\/04\/the-angels-viewpoint.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Angel&#8217;s Viewpoint"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/","name":"Safe Place with Ruth Graham","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Ruth Graham","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/#\/schema\/person\/76d20e190c3b83823997a9f422b86975","name":"Ruth Graham","description":"\u201cTransparent\u201d is the word most people use to describe Ruth Graham. No stranger to heartache, she seeks to provide a Biblical perspective to her journey of faith. She is warm and talks openly about her own need for a safe place as she journeyed through her husband\u2019s infidelities, her subsequent depression, her divorces, her teenage daughter\u2019s two unplanned pregnancies, another daughter\u2019s bulimia, her son\u2019s battle with drugs, grandson's special needs and returning to school at age 40. Although born into the \"famous\" Graham family Ruth did not feel she had a safe place to unburden the secrets of her life. She felt she had to project and image and wear a mask that she \"had it all together\". She had to meet others' expectations of her. It was not until a mid-life crisis did that she fully discover the unconditional love and grace of God. Her life's passion is to connect people to that same grace and love she found, no matter who they are or what sin. Ruth is an experienced conference speaker and Bible teacher. She has appeared on a variety of radio and television shows including: Good Morning, America, The Hour of Power, Focus on the Family, Moody Broadcasting, Fox &amp; Friends, CBN, Life Today and CNN. She has worked in publishing for over 14 years and is the founder of the Ruth Graham &amp; Friends Ministry. Ruth has three grown children and nine grandchildren. She lives in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. 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