101 Ways to Meet Your Angels (3 page)

But you don’t have to meditate to tune out the world. Think of your senses as devices clamoring for your attention. One by one you can turn them off (or down) and enter silence. In silence you can sense, feel, and experience the angels. Other ways to connect to the realms of the angels are through affirmations, chants, guided meditation, and prayers that you say using beads of a rosary or
japa mala
.

Choose to surround yourself with people who are positive, encouraging, and lift your mood and energy, rather than people who are negative, critical, fearful, angry, or prejudicial and who dampen your mood and drain your energy. Release your own fears, as fear lowers your energy vibration and blocks the flow of divine guidance. Fear reduces your ability to tune in to the higher vibrations of the paranormal world. Fear binds you to a lower vibration, fills you with dread and anxiety, and can immobilize your efforts to break free. Letting go of fear becomes easier if you affirm that God and the angels are watching over you during your every waking and sleeping moment. Saint Patrick of Ireland used to pray that the Lord was before him, beside him, behind him, beneath him, over him, in him and outside of him—therefore, what is there to fear?

Everyone has a bag of troubles. It isn’t the trouble we encounter or attract along the path of life, so much as the way that each of us deals with our troubles that raises or lowers our spiritual-energy vibration. Regardless of the daily challenges you may face, a conscious and loving relationship with your angels means you must immediately start to focus on the blessings already in your life, and feel appreciative for those. Practice recognizing the small things in life you are grateful for: a thank you or a smile from a stranger, a good cup of coffee, a sunny day, or time to read a good book.

To raise your vibration during difficult times, choose to focus on your blessings. If you are going through financial difficulties, be grateful for loose change in your pocket or items you can sell to pay for the essentials. Be grateful if you have a roof over your head and food to eat. If you are challenged with a physical illness, be grateful for the people who are willing to help you in your time of need. If you are grieving a loss of a loved one or your separation from a family member or friend, focus on the love and support from the individuals who are still in your life. When you focus on your blessings instead of your troubles, your vibration changes into a more positive, upbeat energy—the type that is more in tune with angel vibration. The following list includes a few more reasons to feel grateful.

• Your higher vibration becomes a powerful force for attracting good people, events, and things into your life.

• Angels want to work with you to help you experience heaven on earth.

• Gratitude fosters hope and the belief that the impossible can become possible.

• As you expand your awareness to the possibilities that exist, you increase your opportunities to experience myriad possibilities for yourself.

As you open yourself to the intangible world of the angels—a world that you can neither touch nor see with the human eye—you must expand your awareness, increase your intuitive abilities, and learn as much about angels as possible. Learn and be grateful for your ability to learn. Stretch your mind in the direction of new knowledge. Your desire and motivation creates the energy of enthusiasm that is like a magnet, drawing to you everything that you need to develop your skills. As you expand your knowledge and enhance your intuition, angels will have more ways to communicate with you. For example, if the angels see that you are paying attention to coincidences and synchronicities, then they will use this method of communication to get your attention.

5: Use the Power of Intention to Connect with Your Angels

Intention is a powerful and clear declaration of something you desire to attract into your life or a goal you want to reach. When you state an intention to the angels you set a powerful energy into motion. Your intention is an invisible force of energy that can make things happen. Get clear about what you want, and the rewards will be well worth the effort.

Remember, when working with the law of free will and free choice, you need to ask the angels for help. Write your intention of setting and following through with the goal of communicating with the angels. When you claim your intention and put it into action, you ignite the divine power within you to make things happen. Imagine what the results can be when you combine your power with the team of angels waiting to assist you. The possibilities are endless as you open yourself up to help, guidance, and clear communication with God and the angels. You can expect the manifestation of a miracle.

Here are some examples of stating intentions:

• Help me to release the fears that block clear communication with God and the angels.

• Heal my wounds from any past experiences that may block clear communication with God and the angels.

• Build my faith and trust, so I can believe in the existence of God and the angels.

• Help me to hear, see, and feel angelic presence around me.

• Help me to notice the ways in which the angels are trying to get my attention to answer my prayers.

• Show me the books and guide me to the people that will help me communicate with God and the angels.

The words and the method you choose to express each intention carry a different vibration of energy. Notice what the energy feels like when you hold an intention in thought. Then feel the energy increase when you write the thought down. Finally, feel the energy expand when you clearly enunciate the intention. The more energy you put into declaring your intention to your angels, the more powerful your intention becomes.

If you are like most people, when you are alone and hear a door closing or footsteps on the stairs, or see a shadow flitting away from your peripheral vision, you will most likely seek a logical explanation for the event. But when logic and science fail to explain the phenomena, do you consider paranormal possibilities, including the presence of angels?

Skepticism has a place in the human psyche because it keeps people from a gullibility that could be to their detriment. But rigid skepticism renders a belief in angels near impossible. You must set aside your skepticism if you are to open your heart and mind to the help, guidance, and wisdom of angels in your life. After all, angels are nearly as old as time, with images of them predating even early Judaism. In fact, some scholars say that the earliest religious representation of angels dates back to the city of Ur, in the Euphrates Valley, from about 4000 to 2500 b.c. A
stele,
or stone slab, from that part of the world shows a winged figure descending from one of the seven heavens, to pour the water of life from an overflowing jar into a cup held by the king.

Other records show that in Mesopotamia, there were giant winged creatures that were part human and part animal, known as griffins. And in Egypt, Nephthys, the twin sister of the goddess Isis, is shown in paintings and reliefs enfolding the dead in her beautiful wings. Her image is found carved on the inner right-hand door of Shrine III in the tomb of Tutankhamen, circa fourteenth century b.c. Her angelic representation encompasses the dead pharaoh and protects him from all harm.

The ancient Egyptians believed that each person born into the world had a supernatural double, called a
ka
, which was born alongside them and stayed as a part of his or her life thereafter. The
ka
was what you might consider a guardian angel. Sometimes there is a simple or obvious explanation for events that seem a little out of the ordinary; but for those times when logic doesn’t explain an event, set aside your skepticism and consider that paranormal phenomena might be at work.

Angels were integral to the cultural, spiritual, and religious milieu of the ancient world, both before and after the birth of monotheism. In the Bible, some angels served as harbingers of death and destruction while others aided humans during times of great stress. Angels provided solace, announced news, brought good tidings, offered warnings, sang celestial hymns, and delivered God’s wisdom to His people. The following traditional beliefs and stories about angels are included to provide a perspective of angel beliefs in a Judeo-Christian context.

ANGELS IN HEBREW SCRIPTURE

The Old Testament contains several stories about the ancient Hebrews’ contact with angels. In some cases, angels revealed themselves; at other times, they remained unseen. Whether they provided protection, counsel, succor, or the means of redemption—according to the beliefs of the ancient Hebrews—they were fulfilling divine purpose. The stories about Hagar, Jacob, Abraham and Isaac, and Moses, and their contact with angels, remain important threads in the tapestry that began the Jewish story.

HAGAR AND ISHMAEL

Perhaps you have read the Bible, and will recall that in Genesis, the first book of the Old Testament, angels contacted the young Egyptian handmaiden Hagar. Hagar had become pregnant by Abraham, the Hebrew tribal leader. Abraham’s wife Sarah was barren and Hagar’s attitude, as the “second wife” to Abraham, troubled Sarah. When Hagar could take no more conflict with Sarah, Hagar fled into the desert. On the road to the city called Shur, she approached a spring. There, while Hagar rested, the angel of God told her to return home to bear her son and to call him Ishmael. Later, through God’s grace, the aged Sarah bears Isaac, whom she sees as Abraham’s true heir. The relationship between Sarah and Hagar again became so contentious that at Sarah’s behest, Abraham exiles Hagar and Ishmael to the desert. Lacking the protection of Abraham and the tribe, and dying of thirst with no spring or well in sight, Hagar put her child in the shade of a bush, begging God not to let her see her child’s death. Then she wept and prayed. An angel of God called to Hagar from heaven asking, “What aileth, thee, Hagar? Fear not; for God has heard the voice of the lad where he is” (Genesis 21:16). The angel’s purpose surely was to comfort and guide Hagar, for the scripture states, “God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water; and she went and filled the skin with water, and gave the lad a drink. And God was with the lad” (Genesis 21:19-20).

JACOB

Elsewhere in Genesis are accounts of angel encounters with Jacob, Abraham’s grandson. Jacob had a shaded history of bad choices; he cheated his brother Esau out of his inheritance, he tricked his uncle Laban out of all his wealth and possessions, he married twice and he had illegitimate children. Later in his life Jacob feared death at the hands of Esau even as he desired forgiveness. One night, Jacob wrestled with an angel until dawn until Jacob finally won the struggle and demanded a boon (blessing). Jacob deduced that since he had emerged victorious over the supernatural being, all would be well with his brother; because the angel had understood Jacob’s desire to make peace with Esau, it was. Jacob remained deeply involved with angelic presences all through his life.

ABRAHAM AND ISAAC

One of the most famous biblical stories of angels is found in Genesis 22:11. The narrative features Hebrew patriarch Abraham, and his son Isaac. One day, Abraham heard the voice of God, spoken through an angel, calling out to him. The voice instructed the old man to sacrifice his beloved son Isaac. Abraham was to take the boy to a remote mountain and slit his throat in the manner of the usual sacrificial lamb and to let his blood run out as an offering, to prove to God that he would surrender to his will. The obedient Abraham took his son to the top of the mountain, laid him across an altar, and raised the knife to sacrifice his beloved son. Then an angel appeared. The angel commanded him to stop, “Lay not thy hand upon the lad.” Abraham obeyed. At that moment, he spotted a sheep with its woolly fleece entangled in the thorns of a bush. He caught it and sacrificed it, offering it to God in place of his son Isaac.

MOSES

A protective angel helped Moses, and the Jewish people, as they searched for the promised land after their forty-year enslavement by the Egyptian pharaoh. A biblical passage in the Book of Numbers reveals, “But when we cried out to the Lord, He heard our voice and sent an angel and brought us out of Egypt” (Numbers 20:16). The angel not only oversaw the exodus of the Israelites led by Moses, he also parted the waters of the Red Sea, making crossing possible. Then when the powerful Egyptian army approached, the “Angel of God” who had been moving ahead of the camp of Israel went behind it, creating a cloud that separated Moses and his people from the Egyptians pursuing them.

ANGELS IN THE NEW TESTAMENT

As religious beliefs transformed, so did people’s views of the angels, as evidenced by angel imagery in the New Testament. Gone are the Old Testament angels, who performed heroic deeds and brought death, destruction, and vengeance. In the New Testament, angels are personified through power. They are no longer abstract extensions of God, devoid of personality, but rather “friends” to humans, to be called upon in times of stress or need. The archangels now possess names. They, and the other angels, serve important roles in the stories of Jesus’ birth, crucifixion, entombment, and resurrection. As you read and reflect upon the following New Testament stories about angels, perhaps there will be one or more angels to whom you feel an attraction, and you’ll desire to make a personal connection.