"Eyes Wide Open: Ep 1: Awakening Spiritual Sensitivity in Everyday Life"

0:00 Hello, and welcome back to Diary of Black Women podcast. I'm your host, Connie Morris, and we're starting a new episode of Eyes Wide Open, Seeing What God Is Saying. But before I even go there, I want to give you a word of gratitude. I want to thank you for helping us reach over 1,200 downloads around the world. Every listener who shared in every prayer has helped us build a sacred space for women of faith to heal, grow, and to return to God's original design.

0:41 And I want to just thank you for your support to make this possible. I started this journey last July and every episode, every download, I was just kind of like, wow, this is this is really going to be an adventure. I didn't know where I was going to take it. But now we're at one point two K downloads and growing. So I wanted to say it again. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And so we're launching a new series, like I mentioned earlier, it's called Eyes Wide Open, Seeing What God Is Saying. And I want to declare something, and this is found in 1 Chronicles 4, and it was a prayer of Jabez.

1:28 I know you probably heard of a prayer of Jabez before, and it's probably going to be our intro going forth. And it says, Jabez, he prayed this prayer. He says he prayed that God's hand would be upon us, his hand would be upon him, and that he would expand his territory, that he asked God to keep him from harm, and that God heard his prayer and he answered him. And that's what our prayer is for this podcast series. And my prayer is for everyone out there in podcast land that listens to the Diary of Black Women. Because you have took time out to listen to my episodes that God has placed on my heart to share with women and men are listening around the world.

2:17 That his hand would be upon you. That he would expand you. That he would keep you from harm. And that you will return to intimacy with God, that you will be healed, empowered, and that you will walk in your divine purpose. And that is my prayer for you today. And as we keep growing, I'm also want to just do a quick announcement that we are coming to Diary of a Black Woman TV on Twitch. So I'm excited to announce that that will start in July. You can join me live on Twitch. It's titled D-O-B-W-T-V.

2:57 And so we're taking the same truth-filled, spirit-led conversations into a live space so you can connect, grow, engage with other people like you to see what God is doing in real time. So stay updated and get reminders by visiting my website at DiaryOfBlackWomenLLC.com. So that's enough announcements. Let's get started. Like I said, the series is Eyes Wide Open, seeing what God is saying. How many know that when we pray. To the Father in heaven who sees all things, that he will give you his sight, his vision, so that you can see what he is doing in your life.

3:45 And if you're a mom in your kid's life, your wife in your husband's life, he can also give you forerunning things that you can run in your life. And so this series is going to be about. So we already spoke about the games we play with God. And so there's a time in every believer's walk when the games that we play with God must end and clarity must begin. You repented from all those games, you released yourself, so now it's time to refocus and come into a reality that it's time to get serious with God.

4:26 There's a time that we had the games we played with God. You know, it was rough, right? It exposed our excuses, our cycles, our spiritual laziness that had dulled our discernment. But now what the Lord is saying that I need your eyes open spiritually. Consistently, and sharply. As we know, things are happening around the world. And a lot of things that's happening, you can't see it in the natural. And God doesn't want you to be surprised. He wants you to be alert and active, not just in the natural, but also in the spiritual realm. So right now we're going to be stepping into a season where your spiritual sensitivity is not optional.

5:12 It is very critical. The days of being reactive today. Are over. God wants us to be proactive. Reactive is always catching you by surprise. God doesn't want that anymore for us Christians. He wants us to be on guard and ready to be responsive to what he's doing. Not two steps behind the enemy, but two steps in front of the enemy. God is inviting you, he's inviting me to live from a space of divine awareness where you discern before you decide and see before it shows up.

5:54 Can I get an amen on that one? This is not about paranoia. This is, and it's not about performance. It's about a posture, not just a posture in the natural, but a posture in the supernatural. God is not looking for people who will, God is looking for a people who will turn their ear to his whisper. How many times do we ignore that still small voice when he's telling us to turn right, turn left, to shut your mouth? Oh yeah, to shut your mouth, to pay attention, pay attention, pay attention. But we ignore that until we boom, crash into the car in front of us.

6:35 I'm just saying, right? So, God's looking for a people who will... Who will see beyond what their natural eyes can detect? Who will walk in the spirit with full confidence, even when nothing makes sense in the natural? How many of you guys ready for that? I'm going to say that again. God is looking for a people who will tune their ear to his whisper. And many times when God speaks to us, it isn't a small whisper. And it's something you would not want. You'd be like, ah, is that God? You know it's God. It's something you ain't ready to do, right? You ain't ready to do it, but he's ready for you to do it. Amen.

7:21 But God's looking for a people, a people. Are you that people who will tune their ear to his whisper, who will see beyond their natural eyes, what their natural eyes can't detect, and will walk in the spirit with full confidence, even when nothing makes sense in the natural. This Eyes Wide Open series is not just another devotional series. It's an invitation to live like those in the scripture who saw for others' myths. Like Elisha, who told his servant, who are with us are more than those who, it said, those who are with us are more than those who are with them.

8:06 He said, remember Elisha prayed and said, open his eyes so he can see. And then God opened his eyes and he saw the cherries of fire. So we got to not be afraid because what we don't see is more powerful than what we can see. Like Ezekiel, who sat among the exiles until the land, until the hand of the Lord came upon him. And then like John, who was in the spirit on the Lord's day when heaven opened. How many raised their hand and say, I want to be like them? That's me. I want to be like them, Lord. I want to see what others cannot see. This is a call to the spiritual maturity. It's not just to wait on God, but to move with Him.

8:52 It's not just listen when it's loud, but to perceive when it's quiet. To not just dream, but also discern. To open your heart to sharpen your vision. The spirit is moving in this and in this time, and you won't miss it. Don't miss the spirit moving. So how do we see in the spirit? We have to pray in the spirit. And as many ask, how do I actually begin to see in the spirit? So let's just give an example. You ever begin to pray and then God just kind of flash something like before your eyes and you go like, whoa, what was that?

9:36 What was that? You might be praying for something and something comes up, maybe like a vision of, I don't know how it happens for you. And you go like, okay, I never thought of that. And then you start to think about that and ponder that. Some people go, oh, that can't be real, and then ignore it. But then some people will, like me, will explore it. Because the podcast that he mentioned came from just me walking and having a conversation with the Lord. And he says, Connie, I want you to, he just said one day, he just kind of casually, it seemed like a casually, but he casually blurted out Diary of a Black Woman.

10:16 And I'm thinking like, okay, Lord, I just finished writing two other books, educational books. So I figured that would be another book. And so I kind of like started researching, like, what would that book look like if it's going to be a Diary of a Black Woman? What would be the topics? And then I'm like, Lord, that's not it. It was kind of, you know, how when you do that and things begin to fall flat, I said, that's not it. So I got to continue to pray. What is it going to be? He said, it's going to be another business. Okay. What kind of business? And then you start asking more questions. And that's pretty much how it began to flow. As we become curious about what God shows us in that flash, in that vision, then God began to give us more and more and more information.

11:04 You know, so that's what I want you to do. So how do I actually see in the Spirit? The answer, we must pray in the Spirit consistently. So set up a time of prayer. Now, seeing in the Spirit is not a mystical gift reserved for prophets. It is developed sensitivity that comes to a relationship, especially in prayer. Jude 1.20 says, But you, dear friends, by building yourself up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit. So we hear about praying in the Spirit, praying in our most holy language, praying in tongues. We hear about that, but many people brush it off as though it's some mystical thing.

11:50 Only the prophets can do it. But God has gifted every Christian that gift to pray in the Spirit. It's praying in tongues. It's a secret language that communicates directly with the Holy Ghost. We're going to get more into that. This is just an introduction and the power of that language. So when you pray in the Spirit, you strengthen your inner man. You sharpen your discernment. You align your mind with the will of God. You open yourself to revelation before manifestation. Take a sip of water here because I'm preaching too good here.

12:30 My throat's getting a little dry. I want to say that again. When you pray in the Spirit, you strengthen your inner man. You sharpen your discernment. You align your mind with the will of God. You open yourself to revelation before a manifestation. And I know this is a little deeper than what you're used to, but hey, come on, chew on it. Chew on it because we just finished playing games with God and God is taking us to another level. He wants us, if you're serious about it, to begin to show you some things that you have not seen before, take you to some places you've never been before, right? Prepare you for what he's doing in your life.

13:12 Let's go to 1 Corinthians 14, verse 2, scriptures on praying in the spirit and interpretation. It says, 1 Corinthians 14, 2 reads, it says, For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to people but to God. Indeed, no one understands them but utter mysteries by the Spirit. When you pray in tongues, you're not praying with your intellect. You're praying Spirit to Spirit. You're bypassing logic and speaking directly into the unseen realm. God is very strategic.

13:55 When he created humans, he needed a way to bypass all that logic and that thinking. You know how we overthink things? He just bypassed it. And the more you begin to pray in your holy language, you begin to outthink yourself. Come on now. You begin to say, well, if God said it, guess what? I guess I can do it. Isn't that how thinking yourself? You begin to understand, like when he shows you a picture, he's not just giving you a movie and just doing something. He is actually showing you flashes of your future. Let's go to verse 13, 1 Corinthians 14, 13.

14:39 It says, therefore, one who speaks in a tongue should pray that they may interpret what they say. So you're not just speaking in your holy language to God. He says you can pray and interpret what you are saying. Interpretation isn't about guessing. It's about receiving the insight God wants to give you as you pray. The more you pray in the spirit, the more you hear divine instruction, sense spiritual warnings, discern timings, understand what you are birthing. I know that sounds so deep. But the more you get, the more you actually, this is what I've learned over the many, many years.

15:27 The first time you're just praying in the spirit, you don't think nothing is happening. You just don't think nothing is happening. And you're praying and you're getting out in the flesh. You're just doing, you're doing it because you know it works, but you can't quite figure out how it works. Let's say, let's just keep it real. But the more and longer that you pray, you're starting to say something is working. I still can't figure it out. Then one day you go like, okay, I feel a connection in the spirit realm. I still don't know exactly how this works, but yet I'm getting some divine instructions. I'm sensing that something's up that I might be in danger. So I'm going to avoid going right today.

16:10 I'm going to go left and I'm protected. You start to sense discerning different timings. Maybe it's not the time to do a better way. And then you start to understand that I might be pregnant with another plan of God, right? And so the more you pray in the Spirit, the more you hear divine instruction, send spiritual warnings, discern timing, and understand what you are birthing. It's just the more you get closer to God, the more you get deeper into the spiritual things, the more spiritual that you become. Why? Because you are a spiritual being.

16:50 Many times we walk in this fleshly body, think it's all flesh. And you know what? People who walk in the fleshly body, we all been there. We're miserable because we know in our flesh, there's got to be more than this because we're not satisfied. We're just not satisfied. There's only so many delicious meals you can eat. There's only so many videos you can watch of people eating delicious meals. Come on now. There's only so many places you can go. To think this is the most beautiful place I've ever been. If you travel a lot and you see this is beautiful, this is beautiful, then you go, there's still something missing.

17:30 What is missing? It is God's, I think, like getting God's understanding on the purpose of why he created that beautiful space. That might make it more interesting, right? So the more you pray in the Spirit, the more you hear divine instruction. Even why are you here? Why did you create me, Lord? Send spiritual warning. Don't you hate when something happened and you could have avoided that incident? Discern the timing. What is the right time to change jobs? Is this my final job, Lord? And understanding what you're birthing. Why do I always feel like I'm pregnant with the gift of God, but I don't even know what I'm pregnant with?

18:14 You know a lot of times you know when you used to I don't know if you have had you had a baby and you say I'm gonna wait till the baby is born, You know, and then you figure out, ah, it's a boy. So it's such a big surprise. But how do you respond when you know it's a boy? You start buying boy things, right? You start setting up that room for boy stuff. Some people like surprises. Some people like to know. What happened if you thought it was a boy and turned out to be a girl and you got all these boy things? I mean, I'm just making noise right now. But think about it. To understand what you are birthing. Romans 8.26 says, In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us through wordless groan.

19:01 And so even when we're praying in our most holy language, like Jude says, building ourself up on our most holy faith, When we don't know what to pray, we have the Holy Spirit interceding through us through wordless groans. So we got all this going on when we take time out to pray. It's not just one thing. God is not one dimensional. He's multidimensional, taking care of multiple things at the same time. When we just get up in the morning or in the evening when you think it's your time to pray and just pray. He's taking care of your business.

19:42 And it says, you may not always know what to pray, but when you yield to the spirit, he prays through you. What is he praying? He is praying God's perfect will through you. And what he releases is never random. It's a divine alignment. Oh, man, when you're praying through your holy language, like I said, when I started out praying in my holy language, didn't know what I was praying. Didn't know I was just being obedient. Lord said, show up at church at 6 a.m. And I will show up, pray for that hour, and then I'll go to work. Didn't know that it was saving my life. Didn't know it was renewing my life.

20:24 Come on now. I'm just being obedient. You know, here's a practical example. There was a time I prayed in the Spirit for weeks without knowing why I felt so unsettled. One night I had a dream that someone I hadn't seen in years. I reached out and that very day they had been planning to walk away from everything. I saw in the Spirit, not with my eyes, but through my prayers, that God used it to intervene. A lot of times He uses us to intervene on behalf of others. And we don't know. Those divine appointments, those divine assignments, you walk into a store and you meet someone and suddenly you feel that urgency to pray for them.

21:05 That was divine assignment. You didn't know you were praying for that particular person. You don't even know that, excuse me, that particular person. But yet God knew that on that particular day, that particular time, you'll be at that particular store to do that particular thing. You'll meet that particular person, that that particular person will meet you and you will have to pray for them and they will be invited into the heavenly realms to meet Jesus. Amen. We don't know what we pray. We just need to pray. Have you ever, have you been avoiding or underusing your gift of praying in the Holy Spirit? I hope you, maybe we all have. We just thought, and maybe it sounds like gibberish to you. It's not gibberish to God.

21:50 It is definitely not gibberish to God. And when you pray, you just say, Lord, you know, I ask for interpretation of it. You know, we see like the prophets who prophesy and they are just doing a wonderful job and I want to be like them. But sometime our prophecy might come out with a scripture. God might have an unction in your heart to say, why don't you read this particular scripture? You might have a dream and you wake up and he might, instead of him giving you the interpretation, he'll give you the scripture. How about that? So you won't mess it up. I love that. When God, he'll start talking to me. And as he's speaking through me, he'll just give me the foundation of what he said.

22:31 Isn't that better? So we're not messing it up. This is what I'm saying to you, Connie. It's found in Ezekiel. It's found in John. If you have any questions, say, Lord, I don't know, where is that found at? So you're not picking up strange voices. And then what mysteries might God be ready to reveal to you if you just yield? What's that question that's on the back of your mind that's troubling you that you just wonder like, why, Lord, why? I mean, he revealed to me in my early, early life of my Christian walk, some questions that was deep in my heart about my family that I didn't ask anyone. It was just something that was odd about some things going on in my family.

23:11 But I just kind of, you know, pondered on it, didn't want to start no family drama. You know, some of us, we're going to ask those questions about our family because something ain't right. And we want to ask that question. And we know if we ask the wrong person, it's just going to stir up some drama. You know, but I was, I don't know if I was, I had to have been praying about it in the spirit. It had to have been something that was on my heart that was a question. I didn't know who to ask. But one day it came out in prayer for me. It came out in prayer. It came out in prayer. And I had to answer. And I had to go ask the Lord. And I said, Lord, is this it?

23:53 And it sounded, you know, when it's true, it sits in your heart like truth. You know, it's like, oh, that's true. And you go like, okay. And you go ask your mom or your dad or dad, is this true? And then they look at you like, how did you find that out? And I said, the Lord told me. And he was like, okay. And then, you know, then the drama begins. But, you know, I didn't start any drama, but I was like, okay, now I know why I had the answer to the drama that was happening in my family. What they did was they gave me now kind of a foundation to pray.

24:36 And so for about another 10 years, I ended up praying away all that drama that was causing the conflict in our family. It took about 10 years to pray all that conflict away because Satan is a conflict starter, right? But God is a conflict resolutioner. Come on now, right? And so that's all I have for you today. Hey, I want to just encourage you for, even if you, a lot of people say, I can't, the Bible asks, you know, remember Jesus in the garden says. Can y'all pray for, he asked, it was Peter and I think it was John said, can you guys pray for an hour while I go and pray?

25:21 And, you know, they fell asleep on him. And so can you pray for five minutes? Can you pray for 10? Can you, can you just set yourself up to just to begin to pray in your holy language? And then what I recommend is just to sit and pray for five minutes and just sit and wait for five. See what God is saying. Then pray for 10 and wait for 10 and see what God. Just be curious about what you have just prayed. Lord, I just want to know what I just prayed in the Spirit. And you begin to be curious and then He'll begin to speak to you. A lot of times people will pray in the Holy Spirit and they'll pray and then they'll leave. and they go, nothing happened.

26:03 Well, something happened. You just didn't sit back to see. You didn't pay attention to what happened next. You know, we're always so busy. You know, we go through these quick drive-thru places to grab a burger or a fry, whatever we get through. That food, to me, has lost its quality. And I notice in my body when I'm hungry, I'm like, I'd rather go home and make a hamburger, take that time to create me a nice meal instead of go through a quick food place and upset my stomach. I'm just keeping it real. And that's what God wants us to do. Stop being so quick to do that. Want a quick answer and just be able to sit in His presence and get His answer. Why?

26:45 Because His answer is going to sustain you for longer than that quick meal, right? It's going to sustain you. It's going to satisfy you. I'm just saying it's going to give you such that rewarding feeling that you are going to seek him more. That's why. That's why I'm encouraging you. So for the exercise for this episode is just to seek his face, pray in the spirit. I would say pray five minutes. Wait five minutes. Do that until you hear. Pray five more minutes and wait five minutes. You only have set a schedule. If you only could do it 30 minutes and do that, pray 10, wait 10 minutes.

27:25 Don't set a timer, just wait. And then take down notes, what he says. And if he says do it, do it. And just begin to, that's how you learn to hear his voice. Begin to hear that small voice and begin to do what he says. So I'm gonna activate you right now. And it says, just repeat after me if you can. It says, I pray in the spirit. I receive what the eyes have not seen and the ears have not heard. I am tuned into heaven's frequency. I receive interpretation, insight, and direction. My spiritual senses are alive. I see clearly, I see quickly, and I obey fully.

28:10 Let's say it again. I pray in the Spirit. I receive what eyes have not seen and ears have not heard. I am tuned into the heavens frequently. Frequency. I receive interpretation, insight, and direction. My spiritual senses are alive, and I clearly discern quickly and obey fully. I want to say that again. Three times is a charm. It says, I pray in the spirit. I receive what eyes have not seen and ears have not heard. I am tuned into heaven's frequency.

28:52 I receive interpretation, insight, and direction. My spiritual senses are alive. I see clearly. I discern quickly. I obey fully. I hope that this was a great episode into seeing what God is saying. As we close out this episode, I just want to activate the promises of Jeremiah 29, 11, 14 into your life to know that God knows the plans he has for you, plans to prosper you, not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

29:33 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, and your breakthrough are closer than you think. Stay connected with me with Diary of Black Women, LLC. dot com. That's my website. Email Diary of Black Women Podcast at gmail dot com. Coming live to Twitch at D-O-B- W-T-V and on YouTube. Look forward to meeting you there. Until next time. Bye-bye.