Friday, October 02, 2009

Children Seeing Angels


I am heartened by this little piece of research reported in The Telegraph, on children having "dreams with a religious connection" and about children seeing angels, reported here

I spoke about this very topic on the Vision and Training Day on Saturday and I am reminded of many of these occurrences in the past six years of pastoring children and their families. Here are some I have experienced - and I am only one person in one country....:-

A 4 year old drawing the throneroom of God, complete with correct number of creatures around the throne with the prerequisite number of wings.
A 5 year old who has been raised (in her mum's words) in a religious vacuum because of her own atheism, the child never been to church, did not own a Bible, never (at that point of P1) having had any RE lessons in school and yet asked her mum why Jesus had died on a cross. Her mum (not a believer) did not know how she could know this and we wondered if it had come to her daughter in a dream or a vision.
A 6 year old seeing a very tall angel in the church's meeting room and describing its position in the building to me.
A 7 year old seeing an angel in exactly the same position in the building and telling their parent, who told me, neither of them knowing that another child had described the same thing.
A 6 year old waking up in the morning to tell their parents that God had taken them up into heaven and showed them a golden city there. He described the colours he saw and then told his parents that God had spoken to him and said: "there is nothing in the sea that will harm you" (exact words. Not your usual 6 year old kind of words)

I am UTTERLY convinced that we need to release and expect such revelations in our children. Are these to be unusual prophetic manifestations? Perhaps. But perhaps more likely, I believe, is that we who parent, teach or train are to build EXPECTATION in our children; that God is living and active; that he wants to have a positive, godly, heavenly influence on our children's minds, because if he doesn't, then there is one who will. I hardly need to conduct a blog poll to ask how many of us reading this have or know of children who have bad dreams.

Readers, it's time to REDEEM our children's dreams and daydreams for God. Teach your child that God communicates today in all manner of ways. He really, really does. Please note that I will never undermine the importance of the Bible - anything God reveals in dreams and visions is to be tested and matched up against the Bible and in all of the examples I have come across children have heard and seen exactly as if written in the Bible.

Consider the words of the Jean Darnell prophecy given in 1987

The Lord is going to send a tremendous revelation of Himself to boys and girls in this country. Between the ages of nine and fifteen particularly, children will begin to have a revelation of Jesus. They will see Him, they will know Him, they will hear Him, He will speak to them. He will come to them in visions and dreams, He will reveal His word to them. They will be converted and filled with the Holy Spirit and gifted by Him. And they will start praying. They will be healed themselves, and they will start praying for each other; and there will be wonderful healings through these boys and girls.

They will not only be the children of Christian parents. The Lord is going to manifest Himself to those who are in non-Christian homes where there is no love nor real family unity, where there is no knowledge of the Lord at all: perhaps not only for one generation but for many generations no Christian person has been in that family. But Jesus is going to meet them and reveal His power and His presence to them and His love for them. When they start coming to our children and to our teachers and telling what they are seeing and hearing from the Lord, our duty will be to receive them and love them as they are- because they will be rough diamonds, and they will have rather unusual, un-churchy language. But their experiences will be real. Some of their experiences will be so unusual you may doubt them. At that point receive their testimonies at face value, give them the word of God, and teach them how to love: because these children will have ministries not only as children, but as leaders in their adult life, and they will bless your country and other countries. So receive these children, teach them. Those of you who teach Sunday school, those of you who have children in your home and neighbourhood whom you are concerned about, begin to ask the Lord to raise your level of expectation of what they can receive, because they are going to start hearing. And just like the adults, they will start hearing the word and receiving the Lord and being able to receive deep spiritual experiences in the Lord
.

We need to not only get ready, but to open our hearts to all that God has prepared for our children and young people. It's time to get ready, to get all hands on deck.

9 comments:

  1. Anonymous2:12 PM

    My 11 year old daughter was saved this past Easter Sunday (2010) and has seen angels on 5 different occaisions this summer. On two of those occaisions, she also saw a dark shadow the same day. I have had dreams/visons? of a dark figure hovering over me in bed on several occaisions this summer. Can you or do you know of someone that I could talk with? I have not been able to find any helpful literature. I will monitor this blog for a response.

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    1. I’ve seen dark shadows at times and I’ve seen angels. My husband and I had a friend that would come to see us and every time she entered the door, chaos would break out. Then a dark shadow would appear on the ceiling in the corner of the kitchen. Even when she left we would catch movement of dark shadows from the corner of our eye. When we moved and didn’t see her much any more the chaos started to get less and less. I saw the dark shadow outside of my kitchen window but it would never come in the house. We eventually cut ties with her altogether and the shadows, as well as the chaos, completely disappeared. As a child I saw an angel and as an adult I’ve seen angels. I don’t know if this helps but what you have experienced is real.

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  2. I have really only just picked this message up and this kind of forum is not really the best place to talk this through. I can't give any in-depth personal counsel through this blog.

    From what you say, you have a live church connection, so do share this to your pastor/minister/church leader and/or trusted Christian friends. Don't let fear take hold of your heart, read and speak the precious promises from God in the Bible out loud at bedtimes and any time!

    Teach your child to speak out the name of Jesus. Neil Anderson, in his book "Spiritual Protection for Our Children" suggests teaching children even younger than your daughter to say "go away in the name of Jesus". Jesus is our hiding place, our covering and protection, our friend and our Saviour.

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  3. Anonymous3:55 AM

    If you truly believe Jesus died on the cross for you and have accepted Him into your heart, try using your authority in Jesus. Ask for the blood He shed on the cross to protect you. Bind the evil in Jesus Name, and then send it away. Then release the angels to work in its place. When I bind something, I release the power of God in its place. The devil has no legal right over a child of God. We are now part of God's family.
    Matthew says if 2 agree it shall be done. Have someone agree with you so you are not alone; a suggestion.

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  4. Anonymous5:18 AM

    What does it mean when a child sees a vision of God and He's surrounded by children?

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  5. Hi there. My honest answer is that I'm not sure. If it was my child, for sure I would say "honey, that sounds to me like a picture that shows you without a doubt, that Jesus really loves children; that they have a special place in his heart - and what's more, children love him. So you can trust him your whole life long".

    Whenever someone receives a picture or a vision & they want to know if its from God, here are 3 tips from me to help check:-
    1. Is it in line with things the Bible says? (In the case above - yes!)
    2. Does it bring comfort or encouragement rather than fear or terror?
    3. Share it with someone else (liken you have just done) to see what they think.

    Hope this helps!
    Blessings.

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  6. Anonymous9:49 PM

    My daughter saw two massive angels walking up and down during church she said the one turned and stared at her she was crying and freaked out we had to leave. She was not afraid of the angel more of the experience. Not too sure what to tell her.

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  7. I saw an angel when I was a child. It was tall and full of light. My sister was with me and saw it as well. I was 6, she was 7. We had a basement bedroom that was very dark so we were the only 2 there. Neither one of us was scared. Neither one of us spoke. We just knew what it was. It stood at the end of our bed for several minutes. We just watched it. I remember looking at my sister to see what she was going to do. She didn’t move. I still don’t know why we saw it but neither one of us have any doubt about what we saw.

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  8. Wonderful, God is building himself through us, children and adults the spirit of God is making wonders my advise is just believe

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