Would you like to have an angel with a flaming sword to protect you?

Yes? I thought you might! Did you know that you can have such an angel assigned to protect you? It's true!

Here's why you can have an angel with a flaming sword to protect you:

God did it for two people in the Bible that He wanted to protect.

God is no respecter of persons. What He did for someone else, He will do for you if you ask.

Easy enough, right?

Here's the amazing backstory about the angel with the flaming sword:

At the beginning of time, God made two people: Adam and Eve. They were perfect and had never done anything wrong, so they had access to God in person. Life was bliss.

After making Adam and Eve, God placed them in their home–a garden called the Garden of Eden. He gave them several instructions and a purpose for life.

One of God's rules was that they should NOT to eat from a specific tree in the middle of the Garden. The forbidden tree was called the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and it was the only tree in the garden from which they were forbidden to eat. They WERE supposed to eat from the other trees …

… including the Tree of Life… whose fruit would cause them to live forever in the state they were in when they ate.

To make a long story short, the enemy came and tempted Eve to eat from the forbidden tree. She did, and by disobeying God's command, she sinned. She was no longer perfect and lost her connection to God. Adam saw what she had done, and he followed suit.

Uh oh. Both people–the only two people on the planet–were now sinful beings, not perfect anymore, and no longer with a thriving connection to God.

God came and talked with them. He cursed the enemy and told Adam and Eve what the consequences of their sin would be.

Then, probably with a lot of sadness, He had to remove them from their Garden home. Genesis 3:22-24 tells us:

Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.”

God drove out the man, and He placed cherubim at the gate of the Garden, with a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the path to the tree of life.

(By the way, some people say that cherubim are a different kind of creature than angels. Others say that cherubim are a high level of angel. Either one may or may not be the case; I don't know. Either way, though, it's a moot point in this particular blog post, because either way it's a heavenly being that God assigned to guard the path, and that's what we're talking about here.)

Why did God drive Adam and Eve from the Garden and put an angel and a sword to guard the path?

Because if Adam and Eve had eaten from the Tree of Life in their sinful state, it would have preserved them forever in that sinful state. Their mortal bodies would not have been able to die, and they could not have been resurrected at the Second Coming with immortal, perfect bodies.

Can we agree that would have been awful?

So God protected Adam and Eve from that horrible, eternal punishment. He sent an angel with a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the path to the Tree of Life. God wasn't guarding the Garden from them per sé. Really, He was protecting THEM from the Garden. He was keeping Adam and Eve from turning down a path that would not have been God's perfect will for their lives.

That's why you and I need an angel with a flaming sword that turns every way, too.

We each face a myriad of decisions every day. We contemplate various paths for our lives. We don't know what is best, but we usually pick the path that we think looks best and start on our merry way.

The only problem with that is that we don't actually know what's best. We don't know the end from the beginning. Adam and Eve couldn't possibly have understood how badly things would end for them (or never end, as the case may be!) if they had eaten from the Tree of Life in their sinful state.

God knew they couldn't understand, and He must have known that they would be inclined to try to eat from that Tree. So He protected them from it. He made it impossible for them to go down that path.

Are you ready to pray for that kind of protection?

I have prayed this for years for others and for myself. It works, too. I've prayed this prayer for people in many situations, including:

People who wanted to walk away from God's call on their lives;

People whose marriages were in trouble, who might want to walk away from their spouse;

People who were running from their relationship with God; and more.

Every time, God has answered my prayer and turned the people back from going down a path that would not have been God's best. He has done radical things:

People who were ready to leave their jobs stayed instead.

People who could have left their spouse stayed instead.

People who have felt like walking away from God pressed in to know God better instead.

This prayer gets radical results!

So pray this with me, today and every day:

Heavenly Father, in Jesus' Name, please send an angel with a flaming sword that turns every way to stand in front of me. Let that angel turn me back if I'm even tempted to go down a path that is not Your best for my life! Keep me in Your perfect paths for my life, Lord!”

It's a radical prayer. It gets radical results because God honors it. What He did for Adam and Eve, He'll do for you.

Ask God to keep you in His perfect paths for your life, and He will!

Has God ever kept you from going down a path that would not have been His best for you? If so, please leave a comment and share part of your story!

Related: Read these posts to build your faith and help you pray for the radical blessings God promises in His Word!

Image courtesy of Brandon Towne on Flickr.