ANGELS: How To Recognize Archangel Gabriel by Whitney Hopler

From the website About Religion

Archangel Gabriel is known as the angel of revelation because God often chooses Gabriel to deliver important messages to people. If the angel Gabriel visits you, you can be sure that God has a significant message for you. Here are some signs of Gabriel’s presence:

Guidance for the Future

When you get sudden insights that give you valuable guidance for the future, Gabriel may be delivering those insights to you. As the angel of water, one of Gabriel’s specialties is sending clarity, and this great angel may send you clear insights about how to make the best decisions about your future – those that will help you fulfill God’s purpose for your life – especially after you pray for guidance.

In her book Archangels 101: How to Connect Closely with Archangels Michael, Raphael, Uriel, Gabriel and Others for Healing, Protection, and Guidance, Doreen Virtue writes: Gabriel, as the archangel of communication, often announces what’s on the horizon, and acts like a manager or agent in orchestrating new ventures related to one’s soul purpose.

Author Richard Webster writes in his book Gabriel: Communicating with the Archangel for Inspiration and Reconciliation that, Gabriel aids visions, and can also help you get glimpses of the future. Webster adds: If you feel trapped, locked in, or are simply in a rut, call on Gabriel to help you change and start moving ahead again.  The gift of prophecy can be yours, if you ask Gabriel to help.

Help Solving Problems

If an idea about how to solve a challenging problem comes to your mind (especially after you’ve been praying for a solution), it may be a sign that Gabriel is with you.

In Gabriel, Webster writes that Gabriel sometimes offers ideas for solutions while people are meditating and asking Gabriel what to do about their problems: The most usual form of communication is for thoughts and insights to come into your conscious mind. Ask Gabriel to clarify anything you do not understand. By the end of the conversation you should know exactly what to do.

In their book Dreaming With the Archangels: A Spiritual Guide to Dream Journeying, Linda and Peter Miller-Russo write that archangel Gabriel and other archangels may work during your dreams to help you solve problems if you invite them to do so before going to sleep: You should awaken with a dream-world memory that contains the solution (or a seed to the solution) to your problem. Sometimes you will not remember having a dream at all. Yet the answer to the problem will come to your conscious awareness later in the day.

Messages Through Dreams

Gabriel often visits people while they’re dreaming. For example, Christian tradition says that Gabriel is the angel in the Bible story about an angel telling Joseph in a dream that he would serve as the father of Jesus Christ on Earth.

In Gabriel, Webster writes that Gabriel will give you advice in the form of dreams and visions. She will help you grow in knowledge and wisdom. Your spiritual growth and development will progress faster than ever before.

Gabriel often hopes that his appearances in people’s dreams will inspire them to pursue greater purity in their lives, write the Miller-Russos in Dreaming With the Archangels. They write that: Archangel Gabriel wishes to meet with you in your dream worlds tonight. Gabriel has appeared to people as both a male angel and a female angel. When meeting him, one can sense the purpose that emanates from him.

The Miller-Russos quote a message that they say Archangel Gabriel gave them about that purpose: Purification of the self builds strength and opens the channels of communication between you and the beings on the higher planes. The wisdom of your guardian angel, the archangels, and your spirit guides is more easily understood and integrated by those who devote themselves to the purification of their heart and mind.

Feeling Challenged When Receiving a Message

People may feel challenged to take on a great responsibility when Gabriel communicates with them. Historically, the messages that Gabriel delivers often have to do with asking people to do something for God, and religious texts record that the people whom Gabriel visits have felt troubled when they ponder his message to them.

The Qur’an says that it was Gabriel who miraculously revealed its entire content to the prophet Muhammad, and Muhammad wrote that Gabriel’s visits to him were stressful and challenging. In his book What You Need to Know About Islam and Muslims, George W. Braswell writes: It was Gabriel who appeared to Muhammad and brought the Qur’an to him and told him to recite. There was physical and psychological stress upon Muhammad as he encountered the angel Gabriel, who gave him the words to recite.

Tariq Ramadan describes Gabriel’s challenging visits to Muhammad in his book In the Footsteps of the Prophet: Lessons from the Life of Muhammad: The angel Gabriel appeared to him several times. The prophet was later to report that the angel sometimes appeared to him in his angelic persona and sometimes as a human being. At other times, the prophet would hear a bell-like sound and revelation would come suddenly, requiring of him such extreme concentration that he came close to asphyxiation.

When Gabriel appeared to the Virgin Mary to announce that she would serve as Jesus Christ’s mother on Earth, the Bible records that Mary was troubled at first: Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. (Luke 1:29)

In her book Women in the New Testament, Mary Ann Getty-Sullivan writes: The angel Gabriel appears unexpectedly. After greeting Mary, the angel begins the message from God, saying, “Do not be afraid.” The attitude of awe or reverence, expressed as fear, is typical for those who experience an epiphany. Mary is troubled at hearing the greeting of the angel. Her confusion is based on both the appearance of the angel and on what the angel has said.

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