What are your guardian angels up to?

[Deadworm]

The righteous can receive guidance and protection from angels:
"Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation (Hebrew 1:14)?"
"For He [God] will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways (Psalm 91:11)."

And children have personal guardian angels:
"See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven (Matthew 18:10)."
To illustrate, my agnostic friend Roger, a retired HUD executive, shared this childhood memory with me. At age 8 he and a young friend decided to hunt for pollywogs near a deserted dirt road. They were interrupted by a big man who took Roger to the ground, locked his arm around his neck, and began to drag him into the woods, as Roger's helpless friend looked on. Just then, out of nowhere, a young woman in red dress walked up and asked, "Is there a problem here?" Her presence spooked the attacker and he ran away. The woman apparently drove up in a red sports car that she left by the road several yards away. Roger turned to thank her, but she had vanished!

Roger is confident that she was a guardian angel. He is certain that she didn't have time to walk back to her car, unnoticed; and it seems unlikely that a young woman would calmly walk up to an unfolding violent assault. Besides, there was almost never any traffic on that dirt road. Despite this, Roger is not yet ready to make a Christian commitment, though he is fascinated by the possibility.​

But do adults have personal guardian angels? After Herod Agrippa's execution of James, Peter's martyrdom seems imminent. But an angel supernaturally rescues Peter from prison and he walks to Mary's house and knocks on the door. Rhoda answers the door and announces Peter's presence, but the skeptical believers assume it must be Peter's guardian angel:
"They said to her, "You are out of your mind!" But she insisted that it was so. The said, "It is his angel (Acts 12:15)."

In Revelation 2-3 John give the impression that every church has its own angel.

In this thread I will share recent encounters with guardian angels and I invite you to share your own angelic encounters. Here are 2 basic questions I have on this topic:
(1) What should our relationship and interaction be with our guardian angels? A pastor acquaintance of mine, Mark, started seeing angels after his recent baptism in the Holy Spirit. With angelic guidance, Mark has developed a miraculous healing ministry and I will share examples on this thread of how personal acquaintances have been healed through Mark's ministry. Mark believes we should not pray to angels, but should rather ask God to send angels to meet desperate needs. Mark has the fruits to back up his claim. It was unnerving to have him describe what my 2 guardian angels look like and what their mission is. But how can Mark's approach be an upgrade over simply petitioning the Father in Jesus' name? And where are our guardian angels when we are victims of crime, accidents, or other tragedies? Why didn't James's guardian angel rescue him just as Peter was rescued? When and why does God prompt them to act?

 

[PollyJetix]

I don't have the answers to your questions, and I'm sure no human can. Those are the kind of questions that God will answer on the other side. Humans may conjecture, but we do not know.

We may suffer like Job. the New Testament tells us to remember the patience of Job. Therefore, even in New Testament times, as New Covenant believers, we can know that there will be times when God will allow our faith to be stretched to the maximum, and we will not know why He isn't delivering us yet. We need hang-in-there patience, like Job. Job had many questions, and later on, God answered them. Our questions will be answered, too... someday. But it might not be down here.

My daughter saw her guardian angels once. she was 4 years old, and very afraid of sleeping in her bedroom all alone. She would often cry for me to come sit with her... no mother can sit beside her child all night, every night!

So I told her about Elijah and the chariots of God's angels all around the sky, ready to protect him.
And I helped her memorize the verse, "The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them."

She knew what it was to go camping, so she imagined tents all around our house, in the yard, with soldier angels in them. So I tucked her in, and kissed her, and walked out of the room, nearly dying inside, thinking of leaving her alone with her fears...

The next morning, she told me she slept very good! she said she started being afraid, so she said the verse over and over... and then, she said suddenly, she saw two HUGE angels, one dressed all in gold, and the other all in white. They were as tall as the ceiling. And each of them held a large sword. They smiled at her, and didn't say a word.

She said she felt completely safe, and went to sleep. She slept all night.
And that was the end of her fear of sleeping alone.

 

[Hearingheart]

The righteous can receive guidance and protection from angels:
"Are not all angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation (Hebrew 1:14)?"
"For He [God] will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways (Psalm 91:11)."

And children have personal guardian angels:
"See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven (Matthew 18:10)."
To illustrate, my agnostic friend Roger, a retired HUD executive, shared this childhood memory with me. At age 8 he and a young friend decided to hunt for pollywogs near a deserted dirt road. They were interrupted by a big man who took Roger to the ground, locked his arm around his neck, and began to drag him into the woods, as Roger's helpless friend looked on. Just then, out of nowhere, a young woman in red dress walked up and asked, "Is there a problem here?" Her presence spooked the attacker and he ran away. The woman apparently drove up in a red sports car that she left by the road several yards away. Roger turned to thank her, but she had vanished!

Roger is confident that she was a guardian angel. He is certain that she didn't have time to walk back to her car, unnoticed; and it seems unlikely that a young woman would calmly walk up to an unfolding violent assault. Besides, there was almost never any traffic on that dirt road. Despite this, Roger is not yet ready to make a Christian commitment, though he is fascinated by the possibility.​

But do adults have personal guardian angels? After Herod Agrippa's execution of James, Peter's martyrdom seems imminent. But an angel supernaturally rescues Peter from prison and he walks to Mary's house and knocks on the door. Rhoda answers the door and announces Peter's presence, but the skeptical believers assume it must be Peter's guardian angel:
"They said to her, "You are out of your mind!" But she insisted that it was so. The said, "It is his angel (Acts 12:15)."

In Revelation 2-3 John give the impression that every church has its own angel.

In this thread I will share recent encounters with guardian angels and I invite you to share your own angelic encounters. Here are 2 basic questions I have on this topic:
(1) What should our relationship and interaction be with our guardian angels? A pastor acquaintance of mine, Mark, started seeing angels after his recent baptism in the Holy Spirit. With angelic guidance, Mark has developed a miraculous healing ministry and I will share examples on this thread of how personal acquaintances have been healed through Mark's ministry. Mark believes we should not pray to angels, but should rather ask God to send angels to meet desperate needs. Mark has the fruits to back up his claim. It was unnerving to have him describe what my 2 guardian angels look like and what their mission is. But how can Mark's approach be an upgrade over simply petitioning the Father in Jesus' name? And where are our guardian angels when we are victims of crime, accidents, or other tragedies? Why didn't James's guardian angel rescue him just as Peter was rescued? When and why does God prompt them to act?

I believe that God sends angels for our benefit.

I owned a small business and was stabbed nine times by someone that all the shop owners knew.....quiet, respectful, church going. I know that angels carried me from the back of the store to the front door. Could God have sent them earlier and prevented the attack? Yes. I do not question why this had to happen to me for there are many things that came from having experienced this...all worth it.

I feel angels around my car every time I get out on the road, God knows I need help in that area.

I'm only visiting this planet and I don't think we learn and grow just by being safe, comfortable and protected. Yes, sometimes the rich texture of illness, accidents, sorrows and sufferings are what is needed to give us clarity and maturity.

 

[Deadworm]

Paul's discussion of the proper exercise of the spiritual gifts of speaking in tongues and prophecy in 1 Corinthians 12-14 is well known. What is seldom recognized is that he seems to recognize the inspirational role of angels in operating these gifts: "..since you are zealots for spirits (12:14)." Bible translations seem freaked out by this literal translation of "zelotai pneumaton" and translate it by what they think it should say-- "zealous of spiritual gifts." But the noun here is "pneuma" (= "spirit") and the praise picks up on the earlier very real hypothetical phrase, "Though I speak with the tongues of...angels (13:1). Yes, contemporary Judaism embraced the possibility of humans speaking in angelic tongues (e.g. the Testament of Job).

Mark, a local pastor, is a case in point. He became a pastor after suddenly being given the gift of tongues in the process of his Spirit baptism. Almost at once, he began to see angels over every believer, including myself. Over lunch at Maverick's Restaurant, he described his vision of my 1 angels, a larger one that fed me intellectual ideas about spiritual issues and a smaller one that brought me joy when I most needed it. Mark's credibility is confirmed by the way his visionary gift enables him to perform miracles.

Here are 2 testimonies to that fact. (1) Mark prayed for the owner of Maverick's Restaurant who was plagued by a brain tumor. After Mark laid hands on him, the tumor vanished! (2) On another occasion when Mark was dining in Maverick's, his angelic guide drew his attention to my friend Dave, who was suffering excruciating pain from a blood clot that extended from his ankle to his groin area. Doctors had warned him of the dangers of moving around a lot. A piece of that clot could easily break away and travel to his heart or brain with lethal effect. But Dave decided to ignore those warnings in order to live an ordinary, if painful, life. Though Mark didn't know Dave, he discerned his need and approached his table, asking, "Do you have a serious medical condition that needs prayer?" When a stunned Dave said yes, Mark asked him if he'd be open to the laying on of hands. Customers were sitting nearby and Dave didn't want to be a public spectacle. But he felt guilty about declining Mark's offer and he hoped that Mark would pray quietly. Dave was wrong! Mark laid hands on him and prayed loudly for his healing. Subsequent medical tests proved that both James (the restaurant owner) and Dave were healed through Mark's prayers.

Miracles like these lends Mark's claim to be guided by angels and to have visions of other people's angels. But is Mark right to advise me to pray for the Lord to send angels to meet desperate needs? As already noted, he might be right, but I still wonder why his approach can at times be more effective than my normal practice of just petitioning the Father in Jesus' name.