A while back I watched a cat die after being attacked by a dog. This cat has an extremely laid back disposition. Unfortunately, that carried over to his response when harassed by dogs. Whenever that happened, he required intervention from a human, because he would just roll on his back and quietly meow as the dog decided if he was dinner or not. Most of the time, the fences that keep the dogs penned protected the cat, who had the sense to stay out of the backyard.
One day, the dogs escaped from the fence. The cat thought he would be safe running under the porch. Unfortunately, not only did that not protect him from the dogs, it also made it impossible for any human to save him. We called his name while a child small enough to crawl under the porch tried to get to him in time. He did not listen to our calls, and he fell into his normal reaction to the dog. By the time the child retrieved the cat, he had been sufficiently deprived of oxygen from being choked by the dog that he was terminally affected. As I was inspecting the cat to see if there was anything that could be done, I realized the only thing we could do was try to calm him down. I will never forget the face of sheer terror he had. I can't describe it. I got him a little calm, and then handed him to my daughter, who held him until he died. Then I assigned one of my sons to bury him in a hole we had prepared to plant an apple tree next year.
This is a true story, but there are some generally-applicable lessons here.
If the veil of our ignorance were suddenly rolled away, we would see to just how great an extent we persist in unwise behaviors that are not congruent with what we know about the world. For the time being, we still live in a world where we can get away with that. That time is rapidly dwindling. The fence is open and the dogs are coming.
This life is not for sitting around as if there were no dogs. Do you know how to use your claws? Have you trained the dogs to fear you instead of seeing you as lunch? Even if you have, do you realize that there are "dogs" much bigger than your claws can handle?
There are "people" who can stop the "dogs." But will we run to them and the situations in which they have power, or to the porch, where they cannot go to intervene? Will we listen when they come to our rescue, while there is still time, or will we ignore their voice, focusing on the dog instead of the escape from the dog?
Angels have an important and ubiquitous role in God's kingdom. But most people do just about everything they can to inhibit the intervention of angels in their lives. If you saw the whole picture, you'd conclude that we couldn't do a better job at impeding them if we had PhD's in the subject, trained by Satan himself.
Unfortunately, as we cascade into successively greater willful rebellion against God, we reduce the greatest possible outcome from avoidance of unnecessary suffering to minimization of unnecessary suffering to palliative care as we go to our spiritual death.
In the fullness of God's potential for us, we are meant to ascend from a messenger of light to a greater messenger of light step after step, as we see, receive, and obey everything they have to offer until it is exhausted, as far as we can manage in a single life, strengthening our direct connection to God all along.
Instead of being handed off to greater messengers, you are handed off to lesser ones, so that the greater ones can focus their limited resources on those who will receive more of what they have to give. You narrow the window of receipt through your rebellion, apathy, and disobedience until messengers of lesser and lesser capability are more than adequate to give all you can receive and then some. It does not take a being of much light to serve one whose allowance of light is limited to comfort as they die spiritually. It is the direct opposite of the quantity of light required to be the angel who somehow had something to offer when he comforted the Lord Jesus Christ as he took upon himself the wrath of the Father in the Garden of Gethsamane.
What does angelic palliative care look like? The Lord and all who obey his voice work with you as far as you will allow them to. They continue, at whatever level you let them, until there is nothing more they can do. The Lord is not unbounded. He obeys the law of his character. He is bound, for instance, by justice and love. When there is nothing he can do to take you higher, he will turn you over to whatever degree of joy you are willing to receive. It's bittersweet, because he knows perfectly well what joy you are missing out on by preferring the lesser outcomes that can be obtained without greater trust in him and greater love for others.
Let us now pivot to the topic of death. I have seen many living things die. It is very rare for living things to die well. It is very sad for humans to die with the same fear as creatures of lower order that do not have the capacity to understand death, nor the ability to prepare for it, nor the ability to live so it is sweet to them. It is sad to see a human with the same look of horror as that cat. And yet, this is the norm.
Humans have a powerful innate tendency to lie to themselves and to others. Perhaps the biggest lie is to convince themselves that they do not fear death so long as they are not immediately facing it. I think that all fears save one subordinate to the fear of death. If you fear something in life--anything--I think you can take that as solid evidence that you will fear death more once you honestly consider it.
The one fear greater than death is the fear of hell. This is an interesting one, because I think we all have an imagination of what death is like, and that it is pretty accurate, even if you can lie to yourself by ignoring it and pretending it isn't going to happen. [This is perhaps one of the biggest reasons we so awfully neglect our aging parents, grandparents, and neighbors. You can't stare someone dying in the face without staring at your own inevitable death. You'd rather not, thank you, and too bad if grannie has to spend her last years afraid and alone.] It is going to happen. But what is worse than death is hell. And hell is an odd thing, because you can only comprehend just how bad it is to the degree you've experienced it.
Angels do not want to be assigned death duty to you. There is such a thing. Every person will be brought into the presence of the Lord to be judged for how they lived their life. That contrast will fill most with such terrible guilt, pain, remorse, and sorrow that they will desire with their whole being to be as far from the Lord and anyone that reminds them of him that they will plead to be taken into outer darkness. Having no power, being sanctified by no law, they will receive one final act of intercession from the angels who gave their whole soul in the hopes that they might receive something--anything--that would bring them closer to God: they are taken to the place they desire, because they would not receive anything greater.
It was terrible to watch that cat die, and terrible to watch my daughter hold him until he did. And it was terrible to burden my son--who was already heavy with grief over the cat, though handling it admirably--to also have to bury the cat. Don't do that to your angels. Don't do that to your Father, who loves you more than you love yourself, and more than you can imagine.
I implore you, with all my heart, to recognize the value in every day God grants you. There is no such thing as a normal day. Every single day possesses tremendous potential to do and receive good, and that potential is compounded when chained together with other days pursued to the same end. Strive each day to live with your heart, might, mind, and strength, oriented completely toward God as far as you presently understand him. Live your life so that it becomes a means for God to bless you, and through you, to bless others.