One thing I do see constantly is when people are doing the things that God has designed them to do,
angels are constantly partnering with them doing that thing.
Let me ask you about this. You know, we read the Bible and we see several different instances
where angels came with messages. There's like different types of angels and different
classifications, I guess. Could you kind of unpack some of that as you're reading scripture?
Yeah. Yeah. You know, I've run into a lot of books that try to create that kind of almost like
taxonomy of angels categorization. And there is some of it is evident in scripture. And I'm,
and I don't begrudge anyone doing that and diving into that. I have personally found
that it can edge on trying to say more than the Bible saying about this. And it's funny,
because when I do talk about this biblically with people, I've noticed that one of the things that
at least I don't hear reflected back to myself very often is some of the kind of broader picture
narrative of God revealing this aspect of his kingdom to people. And it's kind of fascinating
if you go through really all of the books of the prophets, especially different, the book of
revelation, different, you know, kind of revelation moments all throughout the New Testament.
And the word that's most often used, at least in the Greek is actually apocalypse. Now,
in modern language, apocalypse means like destruction or the end of the world or something
like that. But the actual translation of that word is like an unveiling, a revealing or a revelation.
And it's almost this idea of people having these moments. And there's again, an equivalent word in
Hebrew that I'm not going to try to pronounce because I'm terrible at pronouncing Hebrew. But
it's this idea of almost God peeling back the veil and saying, here's what my kingdom looks like.
Here's what the inner workings of how I'm operating. And then that's where you get
these moments like Isaiah seeing this vision of the train of the Lord's robe filling the temple
and just continuing going, going, going. That's this picture of God's authority and power operating
on the earth. There's this again, these pictures in Ezekiel, Hosea of God's throne being on this
massive chariot being pulled by these creatures and it being kind of strange. There's these pictures
of wheels within wheels. And it's funny, some of the things that I've seen, I kind of categorize
broadly this way of some things are more designed to reveal the majesty, the mystery, the holiness,
the bigness of God and other things are designed to reveal the intimacy, the relatability,
the accessibility of God. To me, that's those extremes of, again, seeing God's throne on a
chariot covered in fire, just these big dynamic, overwhelming images versus God showing up with a
still small voice or an angel that looks, at least as I read the description in scripture,
more or less like a person that shows up and just relays a clear message. And here's two quick
stories, at least from my own life, that kind of draw that picture. So I remember I used to always
see this one angel at our church. This was right after I learned that what I was experiencing was
the results of a gift and I was trying to understand it to the best of my ability. And
some stuff made intuitive sense. I would see angels that would dance during worship,
they'd be carrying banners, they'd be almost moving with a coordinated choreography, almost like they
knew what the music would be ahead of time and or just kind of partnering with the worship that
was happening there. And again, that makes kind of intuitive sense. They're partnering with us as
we're worshiping God, they're partnering with that worship. I would see sometimes maybe if we're
praying for people, angels come by and lay their hands on people or remove things off of people.
I remember one time our pastor was preaching about getting freedom in our lives. And again,
as simple as it is, I saw angels with bolt cutters going around and cutting chains off of people.
Again, it's very, very intuitive, makes sense and that seems pretty clear.
Then another time I saw our pastor was praying for an impartation of the
baptism of the Holy Spirit. And as he did, we had people lining up in the front.
And I just saw this orange-ish, reddish, yellowish smear of light that was kind of solid and liquid
and somewhat gaseous. And it came in, it swooshed through the people this way, swooshed through the
people that way and then went out the window. I had no idea what that meant. That looked strange.
It looked very hard to interpret and to understand. And so some stuff I would see made intuitive sense.
Like when I look at it, I can understand it. And some stuff, it would be kind of out there.
I remember I started to understand the difference between these two things with a couple of
experiences. There's this one angel I'd always see that stood at the front door of our church,
it's kind of the entry to the foyer and the sanctuary. And he looked like he was wearing
this armor that was just immaturally taken care of in pristine condition. He had a spear in his
hand. He was standing straight, looking into the middle distance. Looked like he was in his mid-50s.
I don't know if angels can be in their mid-50s, but that's how he looked.
Everything about him looks like a guard or a sentry or something of that nature. So that's
pretty intuitive. But as I was looking at that, I was like, okay, well, does that mean that he
is going to like fight a demon if it tries to come in through this door? Does that mean if
that angel can overpower that demon, that God's plans or the enemy's plans come to fruition?
And if that's the case, what, you know, again, I don't want to be rude, but what extra benefit
does an angel staying there have versus the presence of the Holy Spirit being in our lives,
the presence of God in the room as we worship him being covered in the blood of Jesus? You know,
what extra protection would that provide? And as I was running all these things through my mind,
I saw this short vision in the back of my mind. It was just like a short film that played on the
screen of my imagination. And in it, I saw these two kingdoms and I saw the king of one kingdom
send an ambassador to the foreign kingdom. And when he did, he sent this small honor guard,
just a handful of soldiers to go with his ambassador. And as this ambassador approached
the foreign kingdom, I saw there was hundreds of soldiers on the walls of this kingdom. And when
they entered the kingdom, there was even hundreds more inside. And at first I thought to myself,
well, gosh, if those soldiers decided to attack, there's nothing that the honor guard be able to
do to protect. What's the point? But in that same moment, I realized, oh, it's not just about the
practical protection that that honor guard provides, even though that might be part of the reason.
It's also just as much, if not more about the statement that's being made, that this is a
statement that that king is making. My power is going with this person. This is representative
of greater power that rests within my kingdom. And in that moment, it's funny, the angel looked
exactly the same, but every detail of his appearance just suddenly took on deeper meaning.
That this idea that it wasn't just about the literal protection that would be provided,
that angel fighting a demon if it came through, but that again, that he was standing so straight,
that he was so focused and intent on his task, that I would see him week after week, unmoving,
unflinching, standing there, even that he looked like he was in his mid 50s, spoke of age, of
excellence, of maturity, of all these things. And so again, I realized, oh, it's one layer of a
revelation of God's protection that he would anoint us with his son's blood, that we would be covered
in that way, that we would adopt it into his family. It's another layer of his protection that
his presence would go with us, but it's another layer, a different flavor of the communication of
his protection, that he would send a servant to stand at the door and it would communicate something
different about the value he had on what we were doing in that space. And so again, that stuff made
intuitive sense, but it had this deeper meaning that pointed to something. And one other,
one other, this kind of brief story to wrap up some of that more abstract stuff is, I remember
one time, because I would often see things that were abstract and strange and didn't make intuitive
sense and I didn't really know what to do with it. We were doing an all night worship night and
we walked in and I saw this, there was just a couple of people playing acoustic music and it
was late in the night. And I saw just this kind of, again, just this greenish, whitish,
bluish sort of smear of light that was in the center of the stage. And it was just kind of
oscillating back and forth, not in really any, to me, particular pattern. And I was frustrated
to that point because I would see these abstract things. I'm like, am I supposed to share this?
Am I not supposed to share it? What does it mean if I do share it? How is this helpful? How is this
edifying? What does this mean? And why am I seeing this if I don't know what to do with them? So,
with a somewhat bad attitude, I sat down and was frustrated. And as I looked around the room,
I saw this woman that was in the front row. She was probably in her late 80s and she was kind of
hunched over and leaning down. And I had this thought go through my mind. At that time, I and
kind of the environment I was in had this really high value for really extravagant worship. And
when we worship God, there was a real value for not being ashamed of displaying your love for the
Lord, whether that's moving around or just being kind of more outgoing. But I realized that that
good value had kind of put a bit of a negative mindset in me where I felt this internal judgment
towards this woman pop up in my mind of, I guess she's not that engaged in worship right now.
And as soon as I had this thought, I felt this sense of conviction. And then immediately,
I looked in the spirit and I could see straight through her. I could see her skeleton. I could
see her internal organs. And then my eyes kind of settle on her heart. And when I saw her heart,
I saw this greenish, bluish, whitish little smear of light that was pumping through the four chambers
of her heart back and forth in this pattern and an exact replica in miniature of the one that I saw
on the stage. And as I looked around the room, I saw that exact same light in every heart
inside the room. And I immediately heard the Holy Spirit say, I'm sinking their heartbeats to mine.
And so it's interesting because I suddenly got a little bit more meaning out of this thing that
was abstract, I got a little bit of a correction about an attitude that I had. But at the same time,
I'm sinking their heartbeats to mine. What does that mean? What does that literally mean?
And the more I've thought about it over the years, I realized again, there's things that
are more tangible and practical about God that are relatable about him. And there are things that he
does that are mysterious, that are hard to define, that are hard to express clearly and are in fact
mysterious often. I think sometimes we see things in the spirit that are more reflective of the
mystery of who he is and then other things that are more related to the tangibility of who he is.
That was a very long answer to it.
But that's great though. Any answer that I can get a story out of, I'm happy with.
There's a couple things that I want to make sure that we touch on here and that's guardian angels,
the ability to command angels and interacting with angels as well. You mentioned that you were a kid
whenever you realized that this was a gift, you kind of came to that matrix and understanding.
But have you interacted with them? I could just imagine seeing eight, nine year old Blake just
saying, hey, Mr. Angel, how's it going today? Have you interacted with them? If so, what was that like?
Yeah, so it's interesting. When I was younger, I for the most part didn't feel this compulsion to
naturally interact with angels. The best way I can explain it is if I was at school or at church or
something like that, I would naturally interact with my parents and I generally wouldn't interact
with someone else's parents unless they engaged me for the most part. That's really just because
of an intuitive sense of belonging, of order, if you will. Looking back, I can really see how I
could feel that very organic sense of order with regard to the angelic things that I saw especially.
There's a lot of characteristics that despite every angel I've seen is carried, but if there's
two that really stand out, it's the intentness with which they do and value whatever task they've been
assigned and also their very, very strong sense of respect for the relationships and
roles that they have. A quick example is as we're talking about, every person I've ever met has
what I call a personal angel. Some people call them guardian angels, just an angel that is with
them all throughout their life. One question I'll commonly get asked is, does people get married?
Do their angels interact? Do they work together? Well, I've seen examples of that. For the most part,
I see that angel still be focused mainly on that person, that their one person and remain just
really, really focused on this partner with the purposes of God and that individual's life. Again,
not that that would be wrong or different for it not to be, but it's just that kind of focus of
relationship. I actually didn't ever hear an angel speak until I was in my 20s.
Really?
Yeah. I would see them all the time, but I never heard anything auditory whatsoever until I was in
my 20s. It's interesting. I've met a lot of other people who see in the spirit who have had
slightly different experiences. I think even some of it might be due to my personality. My
personality is a little bit more of an observational one. I like to look and see what's going on, try
to understand things and even occasionally be maybe a little bit more disconnected and
observational as I said. It could be some of that. I noticed for me personally that as I've grown in
authority and responsibility in different ministry roles throughout my life, I have noticed that
the interaction with angels has increased in those regards. There's a specific message for a ministry
that I'm serving, a church that I'm ministering at, direction for the church where I serve now,
things like that. That's where I'll run into that kind of conversation a little bit more.
It's interesting this conversation of commanding angels does come up quite frequently and I've
heard, if not passionate, at least strong arguments for either perspective of you should
absolutely not command angels, you absolutely should be commanding angels. My experience would
communicate something a little bit in the middle. My rule of thumb is one of the most beautiful
facets of the gospel is that Jesus is our only intermediary between us and the Father.
And of course, He is the Father in essence. And so, one of the things that again is so beautiful
about the gospel is that we have actually been invited into a relationship with God
and without intermediary. And I think I have seen angels very much respect that reality
that they don't exist as an intermediary. They exist as a servant of the kingdom of God who is
partnering with His purposes and His purposes in our lives as well. And so, I do hesitate to
do anything that would put an angel between me and the Lord or feel like I have to do this,
but rather than that, however, one thing I do see constantly is when people are doing the things
that God has designed them to do, angels are constantly partnering with them doing that thing.
That can be traditional ministry things that we think of like leading worship or preaching
or praying for folks or things of that nature. But it's also in all the other,
we don't always think of them this way, but the godly things that we're called to in our life,
like working and operating in our families, interacting with others in the world, in our
shopping experiences, in commerce, in our day-to-day lives. And again, many of us are called
to be in the world, bringing God's kingdom to what we think of as non-ministry areas, even though
the whole world belongs to God and doing anything good in the world is an expression of God's kingdom.
And so, I see angels constantly partnering with that. And so, it's an interesting interaction of,
to me, it's almost a moot question in some ways of, am I supposed to be commanding angels? I almost
think in some ways that's the wrong question of if I'm partnering with the purposes of God in my life,
he is undoubtedly prepared and sent angels to partner with those purposes in my life.
And so, rather than being too concerned about, should I tell an angel to do that?
I think it's more an aspect of, should I be doing that? Should I be stepping out an authority in
this particular area? And so, there's a lot of nuanced cases in that, but I think that overall
perspective and attitude, that's just the one I found to be the most helpful.