Lindsie and I watched a timeless classic last night – Angels In The Outfield. For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of seeing it, Angels In The Outfield is a 1994 Disney movie where a kid named Roger (played by a young Joseph Gordon Levitt) prays the last-place Angels will win the pennant. After he does, the head angel (Christopher Lloyd) sends a team of angels down to help the baseball team, leading to a bunch of Disney-esque shenanigans. I won’t spoil the rest of the film for you, but it’s a Disney film, so you can imagine how it shakes out.

The other premise of the film is that only Roger (the kid) can “see” the angels and thus tell the manager (Danny Glover) which players will have the help of the angels in the games. As a result, the foul-mouthed, ill-tempered manager must simply believe that Roger sees the angels. As the season goes on and more people start to hear about this kid who “sees angels,” people start to question both the manager and the kid’s sanity. Nobody really wants to believe there are real angels helping baseball players on the field.

Here’s the point of this post. In Angels In The Outfield, only one kid had the faith to believe the angels were there. At first, not a single adult believed it was possible. They all “knew better.” So why is that, when the Bible tells us about angels throughout its pages, we adults don’t believe angels could be here on earth with us right now? Why is it that children can believe in angels and have often described how “they saw an angel” when miraculous events occur, but adults simply “know better.” Why can’t we see things with a childlike faith that angels are with us when God tells us directly (numerous times) that they are?

In the movie, only one kid can “see” the angels, but his faith convinces first the manager, then the players, then the entire stadium full of Angels fans. None of the other people—even Roger’s best friend—can see the angels, but people are witnessing the miracles and are realizing there’s something going on, even if they can’t see it. When will the rest of us start to look around, witness the miracles happening every day and realize there’s something going on…even if we can’t see it?

There are angels in our outfields right now, whether we can see them or not. Whether we have the strength and the faith to believe it is up to us.

-Mike

P.S. – The film also features a pretty young Adrien Brody and Matthew McConaughey, which is kind of funny. Also: Tony Danza. Yup…all-star cast for sure.