Delay

Delay is the putting off or deferring of action, procrastination, loitering, waiting, lingering, a hindrance to progress.Oxford English Dictionary
  To delay is to put off; defer; postpone; remit to a later time, as something to be done: to retard; stop, detain, or hinder for a time; obstruct or impede the course or progress of: to linger; move slowly; stop for a time; loiter; be dilatory.Century Dictionary


“You may delay, but time will not.”—Benjamin Franklin


  Delay always seems to be a waste of time and ebergy. Whether you are being delayed or causing a delay it can be an irritating and stressful experience because both your will and desires are engaged and being thwarted. Delay is always an initiation, a test and trial. Edna Lister maintained that when met with grace, 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. The quickest way to end the delay, of course, is to declare it good and to see the situation and everyone associated with it as permeated with Light. Delay is often the result of a lack of attention to details.






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 God’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 delay, you have not used enough praise, love, or steadfastness. Delay means that somewhere you are allowing darkness to interfere and dilute your Light. Darkness can be any negative picture, thought or emotion yu hold, 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 with grace, 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.


If you lack sufficient faith, 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. Loving the unlovable with the love of God for God is a tough test.—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 when you declare it 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 vbuts, which cause delays.—Edna Lister, May 24, 1959.


Consider delay to be the gestating period for a robust new idea, not a stillborn creation.—Edna Lister, January 7, 1960.


Postponement is so often 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 more delay.—Edna Lister, A New Technique for Living, March 1960.


Sometimes the answer to prayer is delayed because you worry after praying, which fragments the answer’s substance, and others pick up too many broken-off bits.—Edna Lister, Life Triumphant, May 27, 1962.


Let no dry rot in your heart or consciousness weaken your plans with delay.—Edna Lister, November 9, 1962.


A hesitant sacrifice delays results. You believe in an instantly available God. The question is, do you 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 to pave the way for 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 have the mind of Christ where time and space are one, and we call it a miracle.
  Even 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 the lesson-experience, but declare it good.—Edna Lister, Zeal and Appropriation, June 11, 1967.


God doesn’t delay us, but we often 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, Thak You that I have it now. Let it be so, Oh Lord. 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.
  Lukewarmness causes delay in miracles. You put the kettle of expectation on to boil, turn the burner down to simmer and ignore it until the water evaporates. The kettle burns dry because you forget to refill it with the divine substance of faith and praise. 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 the goal 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 blockades.—Edna Lister, February 4, 1971.

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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

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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

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Edna Miriam Lister
1884—1971
The original Pioneering Mystic,
Christian Platonist philosopher, American Idealist, Founder, Society of the Universal Living Christ, minister, teacher, author, wife, and mother.


Edna Lister


Etymology of delay: Old French delaier, from de-, away, from + laier, to leave, to let, probably a variant of Latin laissier, from Latin laxare, to slacken, to undo.


Delay is an initiation.


Quote

Delay is preferable to error.—Thomas Jefferson

References

Franklin, Benjamin. Poor Richard's Almanack, Waterloo, Iowa, U. S. C. Publishing Co., 1914, no. 665, p. 62.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia. Wm. D. Whitney and B.E. Smith, eds. and compilers. New York: The Century Co., 1896.

Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, 2024.

The Holy Bible. King James Version (KJV).

Jefferson, Thomas, letter to George Washington, Founders Archives, May 16, 1792.

The Oxford English Dictionary: Compact Ed., 2 vols. E.S.C. Weiner, ed. Oxford University Press, 1971.