How Do Guardian Angels Protect People?

Guardian Angel Protection from Danger

Angel Statue
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You got lost while hiking in the wilderness, prayed for help, and had a mysterious stranger come to your rescue. You were mugged and threatened at gunpoint, yet somehow -- for reasons you can't explain -- you escaped without being injured. You approached an intersection while driving and suddenly got the urge to stop, even though the light in front of you was green. A few seconds later, you saw another car come into view and shoot through the intersection as the driver ran a red light. If you wouldn't have stopped, the car would have collided with yours.

Sound familiar? Such scenarios are commonly reported by people who believe that their guardian angels are protecting them. Guardian angels may protect you from harm either by rescuing you from danger or preventing you from entering a dangerous situation. 

Sometimes Protecting, Sometimes Refraining

In this fallen world that’s full of danger, everyone must deal with hazards such as illness and injuries. God sometimes chooses to allow people to suffer the consequences of sin in the world if doing so will fulfill good purposes in their lives. But God often does send guardian angels to protect people in danger, whenever doing so won’t interfere with either human free will or God’s purposes.

Some major religious texts say that guardian angels wait for God’s commands to go on missions to protect people. The Torah and the Bible declare in Psalm 91:11 that God “will command his angels concerning you, to guard you in all your ways.” The Qur’an says that "For each person, there are angels in succession, before and behind him: They guard him by command of Allah [God]" (Qur’an 13:11).

It may be possible to invite guardian angels into your life through prayer whenever you’re facing a dangerous situation. The Torah and the Bible describe an angel telling the prophet Daniel that God decided to send him to visit Daniel after hearing and considering Daniel’s prayers. In Daniel 10:12, the angel tells Daniel: “Do not be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day that you set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to them.”

The key to receiving help from guardian angels is to ask for it, writes Doreen Virtue in her book My Guardian Angel: True Stories of Angelic Encounters from Woman’s World Magazine Readers: “Because we have free will, we must request help from God and the angels before they can intervene. It doesn’t matter how we ask for their aid, whether as a prayer, a plea, an affirmation, a letter, a song, a demand, or even as worries. What matters is that we ask.”

Spiritual Protection

Guardian angels are always working behind the scenes in your life to protect you from evil. They may engage in spiritual warfare with fallen angels who intend to harm you, working to prevent evil plans from becoming reality in your life. When doing so, guardian angels may work under the supervision of archangels Michael (the head of all angels) and Barachiel (who directs the guardian angels).

Exodus chapter 23 of the Torah and the Bible shows an example of a guardian angel protecting people spiritually. In verse 20, God tells the Hebrew people: “See, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared.” God goes on to say in Exodus 23:21-26 that if the Hebrew people follow the angel’s guidance to refuse to worship pagan gods and to demolish pagan people’s sacred stones, God will bless the Hebrews who are faithful to him and the guardian angel he has appointed to protect them from spiritual defilement.

Physical Protection

Guardian angels also work to protect you from physical danger, if doing so would help accomplish God’s purposes for your life.

The Torah and the Bible record in Daniel chapter 6 that an angel “shut the mouths of the lions” (verse 22) that would otherwise have maimed or killed the prophet Daniel, who had been wrongly thrown into a lions’ den.

Another dramatic rescue by a guardian angel occurs in Acts chapter 12 of the Bible, when the apostle Peter, who had been wrongly imprisoned, is awakened in his cell by an angel who causes the chains to fall off Peter’s wrists and leads him out of the prison to freedom.

Close to Children

Many people believe that guardian angels are especially close to children, since children don’t know as much as adults do about how to protect themselves from dangerous situations, so they naturally need more help from guardians.

In the introduction to Guardian Angels: Connecting with Our Spirit Guides and Helpers by Rudolf Steiner, Margaret Jonas writes that “the guardian angels stand back somewhat with respect to adults and their protective watch over us becomes less automatic. As adults we now have to raise our consciousness to a spiritual level, befitting an angel, and are no longer protected in the same way as in childhood.”

A famous passage in the Bible about children’s guardian angels is Matthew 18:10, in which Jesus Christ tells his disciples: “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.”​

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Hopler, Whitney. "How Do Guardian Angels Protect People?" Learn Religions, Feb. 8, 2021, learnreligions.com/how-do-guardian-angels-protect-people-124035. Hopler, Whitney. (2021, February 8). How Do Guardian Angels Protect People? Retrieved from https://www.learnreligions.com/how-do-guardian-angels-protect-people-124035 Hopler, Whitney. "How Do Guardian Angels Protect People?" Learn Religions. https://www.learnreligions.com/how-do-guardian-angels-protect-people-124035 (accessed March 29, 2024).