"Eyes Wide Open: Discerning Delays: Ep: 3: Spiritual Warfare in the Heavens"

0:00 Hello, and welcome back to Diary of Black Women podcast devotional series. I'm your host, Connie Morris, and we are diving into episode three, Discerning the War Behind Delay. But before I get started, I'd like to just pray this prayer of the best over us before we begin. So, Father, I just pray that your hand is upon us, that our territory is expanding, that you keep us from harm, that our prayers are heard and they are answered, that we rise from pain, walk in truth, and return to deep intimacy with God, healed, empowered, and walk boldly in divine purpose.

0:43 So let me tell you right now, we're back to episode three. And I love the story of Jabez because God heard Jabez and I believe that God hears us. Amen. And so in this episode three, we're going to discern the war behind the delay. So let me tell you right now, delay doesn't mean deny, but if you don't have spiritual sight, you'll mislabel every war as a no. And some of you have been fighting depression, confusion, or weariness, not because you're out of alignment, Because a war in the spirit realm, you have been carrying.

1:25 Sometimes we have to understand when there's a war and when there's a no. So let's get into God's word. The scripture, let's go to the scripture because the word reveals the war. Hmm. Discerning the war behind the delay. Discerning the war behind the delay. Okay, so let's go to Daniel 10. I love the book of Daniel. Daniel was a fighter. He fought with the kings and they, oh, is this a good book? You get a chance, read the book of Daniel. He'll show you how to war. He'll show you how to war, how to stay relevant through many, many kings. Daniel stayed relevant through many kings, but he did not sell out his soul to the world. He stayed relevant.

2:17 How he stayed relevant? He stayed connected to God. Okay, Daniel chapter 10, 12 to 13. It says, then he continued, do not be afraid, Daniel. Since the first day that you have set your mind to gain understanding and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard. and I have come in response to them. But the Prince of Persia kingdom resisted me for 21 days. So Daniel's prayer was heard on day one, but the answer was delayed for 21 days. Now, how many of us has probably given up on our prayers after day two, day three, day 20?

3:04 Why not? Not because God ignored him. Why was his prayer delayed? But because warfare in the heavens was blocking the breakthrough. You've got to stop doubting the prayer just because the timeline was stretched. Dang, that's a good word for everybody. Because the word was delayed doesn't mean that it was denied. Don't that make you go? To me, just hearing that makes me a little upset that I might have quit a little bit too early. Sometimes we know when we get punked out, we got punked out from some of our prayers.

3:45 But Daniel continued to be persistent in his prayer. Remember, we talked from day one, pray until you see, right? You're praying in the Spirit, and God tells you. The other one, we want to stay connected. Remember the characters we talked about, when they got in the Spirit, they prayed. They prayed. And so in Daniel, Daniel says he was still praying. What happened was Daniel was still praying. And the guy said, this guy is not going to give up. Somebody better go tell him what's going on. And so he went, I love this. He went to find out. The angel told him, your prayers was heard on the first day, but there's war in the heavenlies.

4:32 That's like a devotional title, but there's war in the heavenlies. Oh my gosh. 2 Kings 6, 6-17, said, Don't be afraid. Those who are with us are more than those who are with them. Elisha prayed, Open his eyes, Lord, so that he may see. Then the Lord opened the servant's eye, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. The servant saw the enemy but didn't see God's army. That's how it feels when you're under attack and can't discern what's behind the scene.

5:13 But God wants us to open our eyes to help what's already there. He wants us to see that he's already sent help. Isn't that the kind of God we serve? We don't have to panic. We don't have to be afraid. Just like Daniel, he sent Gabriel to say, Gabriel, tell Daniel, Daniel, don't you worry. We heard, God heard your prayer the first day. There's just been war in the heavenlies against that prayer. And Daniel probably continued to persistently pray. That's a scripture that don't stop praying. You keep praying until that prayer manifests itself.

5:53 And then you got Elisha. He said, can you open his eyes so he can see? So you pray until you see. Don't stop praying until you see what God is doing. If you ask for something, if it's not there, you do not give up. Help is already there and available. Here again, we see in Ephesians 6, 12, it says, For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against principalities, rulers, against authorities, against the powers of this dark world. You're not dealing with bad luck. closed doors of confusion, you're wrestling with strategic interference.

6:35 But God doesn't want you guessing. He wants you discerning. Wow. What I love about this whole series is the comeback after the games we play. God is just like a father. He is a father, not just like. He is a father. And he says, smack, smack, get it right, get it right, get it tight. And then he comes back and tells you how to get it right and how to get it tight. He says, you're not dealing with bad luck or closed doors or confusion. You are dealing with strategic interference. Doesn't that help us? Doesn't that just help us? It tells us like when things are not being answered right away, don't you stop, don't you give up.

7:22 You keep praying. You keep praying. You keep believing. You keep trusting until you see. Until you see. Amen. Delay is often a sign of destiny. Let's cover some spiritual commentary. Some delays are demonic resistance. Some are divine protection. Others are developmental timing. We ain't ready yet, but you won't know which is which until you live with your eyes wide open.

8:03 God is not keeping anything from you. But until you keep pressing in, you don't know what it is. You don't know what it is, right? And so some delays are demonic resistance. We see with Daniel, it was demonic resistance. We see some are divine protection. We see in Elisha, I think that was Elisha. Yep, Elisha, that was divine protection. You didn't see it because it was divine protection. of our developmental timing. That could be me. That could be you. That when it's right, I'll show you what it is. But you don't know which it is until you live with your eyes wide open. Eyes wide open really means living in the spirit.

8:46 Sometimes it's not time yet. Sometimes it's not safe yet. And sometimes it's already yours, but the enemy is trying to exhaust you before it arrives. That's why Daniel fasted. That's why Elisha prayed for vision. And that's why you can't go silent when it gets hard. You must press in deeper. Oh my gosh, isn't that good? I'm just, I'm not going to preach. It's preaching itself. A woman once, when real life meets revelation, a woman once told me she was praying for a new job and started to feel discouraged after weeks of silence. And what she didn't know was that HR director had already selected her, but paperwork was held up in corporate.

9:33 The answer was on its way, but her heart was under fire. Delay will still try to convince you that you've missed it. But if you knew what was happening in the spirit, you were praised instead of panic. You know, I can tell you many stories. When I try to tell all my business on the podcast, I wait till I go live. But, you know, a lot of times we will have a delay. I remember, you know, I got Swiss jobs recently and it was a delay. It was an actual delay. My boss, she said, I'm going to call you Friday with what our decision is going to be. I didn't get a call on Friday.

10:15 And so I continued to put applications in. Interviews started rolling in. The call came on Monday. Connie, would you accept the job? And I said, wow, I thought you were going to call on Friday. He just said, Connie, we had to make sure that everybody knew who was coming. We didn't want that to get out. So they waited till that person arrived because they took a sick day or something. And so, and I was like, yep, I accept the job. And so we have to do a background check. Meanwhile, meanwhile, other jobs were calling me, blowing me up, you know, and I said, I said, hey, I can take this job because it was more money. It was just more money. And I said, no, no, no, Lord, it's this job he wants me to have. The Lord wants me to have this job.

11:00 I didn't know why he wanted me to have this job. It wasn't high pay. It was menial tasks. He just said, I want you to have this job. This is your job. And I was like, okay, I'm going to sit here. And meanwhile, all the other jobs are going by, more pay, more pay, more pay. And I had to deny, well, I've already accepted a job. I already accepted a job. And I'm at that job now that I want me to have. And when I accepted the job, the Lord just whispered and he said, you chose wisely. Now, I'm still working out the revelation of why this job. I really am. I really, really am. But when God tells you to choose a job that you wouldn't have chosen because you're looking at in the natural, the pay and the natural, the pay wasn't really grand.

11:48 But God says, I want you to look. Don't look at the pay. I want you to look at what I want you to do at this particular job. And already I've run two people to the Lord. Is the body more important? I don't know yet. I'll keep you posted. Right? So understanding when real life meets, when real lives meet, I can't even say it, revelation. To understand that even though I waited, I could have took another job while I waited, but it was over the weekend. I said, nope, the Lord told me that that's your job and told me to wait. And so that delay convinced you that you might, I missed what he had for me if I would just kind of ran ahead of him.

12:34 And so being aware that that divine delay could mean what it doesn't mean, it could mean demonic resistance, I felt like I was just talking a lot, but divine resistance, divine protection, and developmental timing. Let's go through some more scriptures. Let me remind you what Paul says. It says, 2 Corinthians 10, 4, it says, The weapons we fight are not the weapons of this world. On the contrary, they are divine power to demolish strongholds. What that means is that fasting shifts things in the spirit. Tongues confuse the enemy. Declarations reinforce the assignment.

13:17 Worship builds your faith and weakens demonic plans. So yes, we're under this divine delay, this strategic interference. But God has given us weapons for our warfare. He has given us the equipment, the tools to beat this. And what are those tools? And many of us don't use them. Can I just say the truth? Fasting, what does it does? It shifts things in the spirit. And it's funny that that's happening right now because just recently the Lord said, I need you to fast. And fasting is not always on your timing. Can I just give you amen?

13:57 A lot of times we have a fasting at the church that's always in January, right? So everybody do their fasting in January. But God may not want you to do it in January. where he might tell you, like, I need you to start doing some fasting right now. It'd be random to you, but God's already, remember, nothing random to God. God's intentional. So when he tells you, I need you to start fasting, you need to do that. He said, Connie, right now, I need you to start. I was like, ooh, today. Yes, today. Tongues confuses the enemy. So you need to pray in tongues. Declarations that we do, we declare, we decree some things. It just reinforces what you're supposed to do. It reinforces that assignment.

14:38 And in worship, it builds your faith and weakens demonic plan. You always got to worship the Lord. So you're not defenseless. You're under-equipped if you don't engage. Wow. You know, some of us maybe are not in the natural physical fighters. I'd rather not fight. You know, I'm not going out to start a fight because fighting, I mean, can be real. I mean, you get scratches on you. People pull your hair. I mean, it's not, you get, oh, it's just not a good thing if you want to stay pretty, right? Fighting can be ugly sometimes. So I'm not really a fighter fighter. I don't like that fighting thing, but I'll fight, right? I'm a fighter.

15:22 So I'm not going out to start a fight, but I probably can, I will finish it. Cause if I got to get nasty and dirty and you didn't got me, you didn't took me, maybe you punched me. You didn't, it's kind of like this for me. You know, you go to the swim, you go swimming and you don't want to get wet, but somebody puts you in the pool. You stay in the pool because you're already wet. If you punch me, I'm in the fight, period. We just going to fight. And that's how it is with the enemy. He's already threw you in the pool. he's already through the first punch he your nose is bleeding he caught you off guard you might as well go and get into the fight just go ahead and get take off those fake nails pull that wig off come on now wipe that makeup off your face you know put a little vaseline on let's just get into this fight let's go get our children back let's go get our healing back let's go get our money back Let's go get our families back, our children, everything that he has stolen.

16:20 He's already started it. He's already through the first punch. Let's get in the fight, people. But that's kind of in the physical. But in the natural, in the spiritual, fasting. If you want to throw a punch at the devil, stop eating everything. If God tells you to do it, that means he's already set up a shield that's going to protect you. If he says start fasting, boom, do it now. Tongues, begin to confuse the enemy by praying out God's strategic plan for your life. Start doing it. If you're at a five-minute praying in tongues, if he tells you I need you to pray in tongues more, then you better pray in tongues more.

17:01 Don't ask him how long. You pray until you can't pray no more. You in a fight, girl. You've had a fight until you win. Declarations. You decree until you see. You decree until you see. And you worship until, I don't care, you worship. That makeup, you can put some new makeup on. Come on now, you pretty girls. You worship. Worship builds your faith and weakens the demonic plans. We can't keep losing because we're afraid to get dirty with the devil. He is playing for keeps. You need to play for keeps. Amen. I know I got kind of loud on that one, but hey, you know, it's like training you guys to win a fight. Like, let's get in this fight.

17:46 You know, I used to wear fake nails. And even as a police officer, I wore them. And I realized, you know, when I broke a couple of them, they were, you know, you break them off wrong. They hurt and they injured for like another month. You can't put a nail on it anyway. So I was like, you know, forget the nails. We're not doing that. We're not doing that. We're in a fight. And then when I retired, put them on a couple of times. What's the purpose? It's a waste of money for me. All right. But hey, because I'm in this spiritual fight. So what are some of our spiritual weapons, ladies? It's fasting. It's praying in time. It's declaring. It's worship. Right? Get equipped. Don't forget, put on our spiritual armor, Ephesians 6, 6, 10 through 18. Praying all the time.

18:31 So let's kind of go back to a reflection period here. I know I get to talking. It's so good. So let's ask ourselves, have you been mislabeling your delays as rejection? Yeah, I have. I have, I have, I have. So let's get that going. A delay is not a rejection. I'm in a fight. What's the last thing God told me to do? And did I stop short? We all can say, yep, we did. Am I spending more time panicking than praying? How about complaining than praying? How about buffeting at the wind and then complaining and then praying?

19:13 Let's just put that together. I want to say this part again, fasting, tongues, declaration, and worship. Put that back on your list of things to do. Write this in your journal. Lord, help me to discern the delay. Open my eyes to see the war behind the wall and give me strength to press forward anyway. Come on, girls. We know how to fight. We know how to protect our family, ourselves. I mean, I'm a lot older than when I was when I was in high school. We know that, right? So fighting ain't the thing for us older folks to be out there fighting. But we can fight in the spiritual. Saying you cannot have no more of, you can't steal no more.

19:58 Ephesians 4.30, you're not stealing no more stuff from me. Our decree for the day is, I see you, I see with spiritual eyes. I will not be deceived by delay. And a lot of times when we deceive by delay, I'm supposed to be a decree, but I'm gonna have to stop and do a preaching moment. We start making stuff up in our own. We start doing our own thing. Don't we? We start creating our own, doing it ourselves, and then God gets out the way. So don't let that delay allow you to create your own stuff. Go buy your own thing. Let God the Father become that provider for you. Amen. So I'm sorry, the decree. I will see with spiritual eyes. I will not be deceived by delay.

20:44 My breakthrough is not denied. It is defended. I fight from victory, not for it. I pray. I'm in a fight mood. I'm about to start over. Sorry, y'all. I see with spiritual eyes. I will not be deceived by delay. My breakthrough is not denied. It is defended. I fight from victory, not for it. I fast. I pray. I speak. I believe. The war may be real, but so is my promise. I say it again. I see with spiritual eyes. I will not be deceived by delay.

21:28 My breakthrough is not denied, is defended. I fight from victory, not for it. I fast, I pray, I speak. I believe. The war may be real, but so is my promise. I just want to pray that we have a prayer of strength and spiritual sight. Father, thank you for the reminder that just because it's delayed doesn't mean it's denied. I surrender the timeline, but I stand firm in your word. Open my spiritual eyes. Reveal what I've been wrestling. Help me discern the enemy's tactics and refuse to quit before the promise arrives.

22:16 Give me the fight pack in me, Lord. Strengthen my hands. Reignite my faith. Let me war with worship, fast with focus, and decree with boldness. This promise will come to pass in your timing in your way I will not lose heart I will not back down because I am armed aware and awake in Jesus name Amen Wow that's powerful Wow If this episode stirs something in your spirit stay in position don't let delay break your focus the war is real but so is your victory, So join me for the final part of this series, episode four, Sudden Glory, Birthing the New Thing.

23:06 Until then, keep the sword sharp and the eyes open. And let me activate the promises of Jeremiah 11-14 over your lives. God knows the plans He has for you, plans to prosper you, not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. and when you seek him with all your heart, you will find him. He will bring you back from captivity and restore everything that was lost. Hold on. Your healing, your clarity, your breakthrough are closer than you think. This is more than a podcast. It's a return to God's plan for your life. Let's keep walking it out together.

23:46 Stay connected with our website, DiaryOfBlackWomenLLC.com and Twitch, which is coming in July. Twitch, DiverBlackWomenTV, DOBWTV, coming to you soon, Tuesdays and Fridays. You'll get more information on the website. Until then, keep your eyes wide open. Until next time, bye-bye.