Delay

Delay is defined as "the putting off or deferring of action, procrastination, loitering, waiting, lingering, a hindrance to progress."

Delay can result from a failure in will or a thwarted desire, but is generally an irritating or a disappointing initiation. Delay can be a great test and trial. Yet when met in peace, knowing that law is acting, delay creates strength great enough to stand throughout the ages against any apparent obstacle, hindrance or hurt that the world presents.

Edna Lister on Delay

"For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." – Matthew 7:2. God gives according to how you mete your measure. If you dilute your measure, you delay the miracle. – Edna Lister, January 29, 1939.

To achieve the great heights and perfect end, guard against growing lukewarm about delay. – Edna Lister, January 23, 1939.

There is no delay under the law, only the Father's right time. – Edna Lister, August 23, 1939.

Faith is the first greatest thing in your life and includes all other action. The action of faith permeates darkness with a piercing Light and all doors open to you. When you suffer from delay, you have not used enough praise, love, or steadfastness. Delay means that somewhere you are allowing darkness to possess you and dilute your Light. Darkness can be any negative picture, thought or emotion, and may have nothing to do with the goal upon which you have unfalteringly fixed your faith.

Delays cannot enter if you put your faith into action. Your degree of faith ranges from cold to white heat — and the most delaying degree is lukewarmness — The degree of your faith dictates whether you experience delay or a miracle. – Edna Lister, September 1, 1939.

Delay is a hard test of fire to overcome perfectly. – Edna Lister, December 7, 1939.

Delay is a great test and trial. Yet when met in peace, knowing that law is acting, delay creates strength great enough to stand throughout the ages, against any apparent obstacle, hindrance or hurt that the world presents. – Edna Lister, December 7, 1939.

Sometimes others' actions or lukewarmness delays your plans. Take the respite as a gift from God, and do not blame yourself. – Edna Lister, November 11, 1941.

God's laws prevent Him from setting aside law to suit our whims or desires. You may not use law, though you may invoke law, yet beware, lest you call on it unworthily and it returns, bringing delay. – Edna Lister, November 5, 1942.

Some people live a life of delays in payment of hasty temper, especially resentful unrighteous judgment of others. – Edna Lister, December 1, 1942.

Delay is a tough initiation. – Edna Lister, April 18, 1943.

God metes three years of delay for failure to those whose heads swell in pride of ego. – Edna Lister, June 29, 1944.

Every time you look at your past, you push your present gains into the future. We call it delay. – Edna Lister, December 8, 1944.

An unwilling sacrifice, or one made grudgingly (a "Well, if I must" sacrifice of obligation), causes many delays and postponements, and brings no returns at all on the inner. – Edna Lister, Five Keys to the Kingdom, 1945.

God is limitless in His ability and desire for your perfection. The limits you place on ability and desire causes your lacks and needs, pain and delay. When you remove your limits on the Power, and all Light will fulfill itself and create your every desire now. – Edna Lister, September 4, 1945.

Delays may come when others fail. Thank God for the delay. Let it pay you dividends. Ask, "What in this delay can pay me spiritual dividends?" – Edna Lister, October 12, 1947.

The law of dalliance: Individual or collective willfulness in dallying about giving up self creates delays. The law of dalliance applies to all details in all things and in all ways, conscious or subconscious. The subconscious, the seat of treachery, is the dilly-dallier. – Edna Lister, May 13, 1948.

You can delay fulfillment by refusing to cross the bridge of Light. – Edna Lister, January 10, 1949.

Delays and frustrations often are born of not loving enough. – Edna Lister, June 6, 1954.

Wipe the day's page clean each night, lift every negative spoken or thought for burning or absorption, so you neither harm nor delay yourself or the person criticized. – Edna Lister, November 21, 1955.

Thinking that a person owes you puts you both under the vibration of loss and delay. – Edna Lister, October 25, 1956.

One curse puts up a line to the outer world, and it brings limitation and delay. – Edna Lister, September 5, 1957.

Don't defer your date with destiny in life by talking about delay. – Edna Lister, January 7, 1958.

Delay is good. – Edna Lister, August 7, 1958.

No power can set aside your good declarations for others. Any delay or variability in their ascension, corresponds exactly to the fluctuations in you. – Edna Lister, April 6, 1959.

Let there be no more "ifs" or "whens" or "buts," which cause delays. – Edna Lister, May 24, 1959.

Delay is the gestating period for a robust new idea, not a stillborn. – Edna Lister, January 7, 1960.

Postponement is due to lack of self discipline. – Edna Lister, February 4, 1960.

Earnestly develop new techniques of applying law in every situation, and you will have no delay. – Edna Lister, A New Technique for Living, March 1960.

Sometimes the answer to prayer is delayed because you worry after praying, which divides the answer's substance, and others pick it up. – Edna Lister, Life Triumphant, May 27, 1962.

Let no dry rot in your heart or consciousness intercept to delay your plans. – Edna Lister, November 9, 1962.

A hesitant sacrifice delays results. We believe in an instantly available God. The question is, do we believe in being instantly available for God? – Edna Lister, January 10, 1963.

Your cesspool of self is the source of your delay. – Edna Lister, September 16, 1963.

Listen carefully, for the taint of idle words goes forth as delay. – Edna Lister, January 19, 1964.

Delays are life's gopher holes, which you stumble into when you don't watch your step. – Edna Lister, Choice, Your Glorious Foundation, October 16, 1966.

People live in the world, waiting for time and space to meet, which is the source of delay and heartache. They do it in the wrong way, at the wrong time or place, because under fate, time and space never seem to meet. When you walk the Path of Destiny, the Via Christa, you move into Christed consciousness where time and space are one, and we call it a miracle. – Edna Lister, Do You Follow Your Path of Destiny? December 4, 1966.

One negative statement can delay you a month. – Edna Lister, Do You Follow Your Path of Destiny? December 4, 1966.

Delays are golden steps in ascension, and God's children must learn to climb in joy and gratitude, remembering that praise wins the next step. – Edna Lister, January 15, 1967.

Delay may mean you moved too quickly. Never repudiate, but declare it good. – Edna Lister, Zeal and Appropriation, June 11, 1967.

God doesn't delay us, but we delay Him. – Edna Lister, The Supremacy of Religion, October 15, 1967.

A metaphysical statement such as, "Delay is good," is right, if you continue declaring, "I have it now. Let it be so. Let it be Light." – Edna Lister, May 24, 1968.

You must pray ten thousandfold more fervently when you name a deadline for the miracle, because your demand will cause a detour of delay. – Edna Lister, June 13, 1968.

Lukewarmness causes delay in miracles. You put the kettle on to boil, turn down the burner to simmer and ignore it until the water evaporates. The kettle burns dry because you forget to refill it with divine Substance. The Father never turns off the power or substance, but we do. – Edna Lister, June 13, 1968.

Don't procrastinate; it can delay your miracle. – Edna Lister, God Neither Slumbers Nor Sleeps, December 14, 1969.

Most people who experience delay don't really want it enough. – Edna Lister, Remove this Mountain, May 10, 1970.

You block the path of your project when you try to change another, interfere, or think he isn't coming through. Each must lift his self-placed blocks. – Edna Lister, February 4, 1971.

New Testament on Delay

Now it is high time to awake from sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. – Romans 13:11.

Let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. – Galatians 6:9.

Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine. – 2 Timothy 4:2.

But this man [Jesus Christ], after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. – Hebrews 10:12‑13.

The trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. – James 1:3-4.

Old Testament on Delay

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace. – Ecclesiastes 3:1-8.