Mrs. PIE

Don't Quit in the Middle

• Shelley Jeffcoat • Season 4 • Episode 132

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We explore the encouragement to "not quit in the middle" of life's journey, examining how temporary afflictions prepare us for greater glory while strengthening our inner selves even as external circumstances challenge us.

• Using 2 Corinthians 4:16-17 as foundation for understanding perseverance
• Identifying three parallels where people often quit: business strategies, relationships, and spiritual growth
• Breaking free from outdated business approaches and embracing innovation
• Releasing bitterness and disappointment in relationships that keep us stuck
• Developing personal spiritual growth rather than depending solely on others
• Understanding that temporary afflictions are preparing us for greater glory
• Recognizing that God sometimes "squeezes" us to mold us into what we're meant to become
• Carrying God's favor to encourage others not to lose hope

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Speaker 1:

no-transcript, but I want to say a quick shout out and hello, because I have a lot of folks. I never say followers. I don't say followers, even if it's on social media. I say community, but we have a lot of new folks, or I have a lot of new folks who connected with me or they've joined my community on the professional networks on LinkedIn, and so they might be seeing this and they're like what is this? I didn't sign up for this, but there are 5,208 people in my personal community on LinkedIn and 548 on the Mrs Pie channel on LinkedIn, and so I just wanted to just take a pause and say good morning and hey y'all, and hope everybody's doing okay and this, if you're new to this every Thursday I come on at 7 am Eastern Standard Time, so I am live and you can watch either on LinkedIn or you can also watch on YouTube or Facebook or Parade Deck TV when that's live. But the one thing I want you to know is that, as I'm coming on every week, I'm sharing things that I truly hope are going to inspire you and encourage you to just hang in there, and my intentions are pure and so so I want to bless you. You know those of you all who are new to my community and just say thank you so much, especially you all who are taking the time to just like and share your comments and just tell me how you're doing.

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We have a phone line. For those of y'all who don't know, that's what's scrolling on the bottom of the screen. It's a free phone line for 30 minutes and you can call it every Thursday one o'clock, seven o'clock, and one of my amazing, amazing women partners will be able to pray you through some things. So you bring your prayer requests. It's private y'all. It's a phone line so you don't have to see anybody and you can call them from the US or the UK. So we invite you to do that every Thursday and it's just been such a blessing for hundreds of people. So thank you, three Praying Sisters.

Speaker 1:

So now we're going to get started. Y'all, I'm just I'm trying to do better with my comments. Watch. It's hard to do that while I'm in, when I get into the mode of teaching, because I get distracted really easily. So, speaking of distractions, we're talking about our topic today being don't quit in the middle, and the theme for this month of May was really to encourage all of us to keep going, to keep moving. So I want to start from a position of kind of where we are. I do have a scripture I want to share. I'm going to pull up on the screen, I'm going to talk us through some things, and then we're going to pray and then we're going to shut this out. That's the flow. We're in All right.

Speaker 1:

So good morning, good morning y'all, good morning y'all, okay. So first off, let me just pray. Lord, I thank you for allowing us and again, another day. Thank you for giving us this amazing day of Thursday, and we are so hopeful of all of the good news that's coming our way today. We are so hopeful for your promises coming through in our lives, and not just in our lives, but in our children's lives and the children that we know, our nieces, our nephews, our own children, god, children, any child that you put in our place. I just thank you for that. I thank you, lord, for just giving us peace this morning in all our situation, whether it's our finances, our health, our job, anything that it is, and we just thank you. We're declaring already victory. We're in partnership with heaven. So we're thanking you that you're blessing us and I thank you. You're such an amazing God that you know, lord, you bless us Even when we're not asking for it. We just trip and fall into blessings because you're such a good father. So thank you, lord. Lord Jesus, I ask that you will now intercede and you'll take over Holy Spirit. This is your, this is your time, this is your platform, and so every word that comes out of my mouth, I pray that it's in alignment with what you say concerning all of us. Amen, all right, you got to pray first, right? So we're in this scripture. I'm going to pull this scripture up on my screen. Y'all. Sometimes I share my screen and sometimes I don't, and I have to. Why am I saying all this? I have to explain all this because we also have people who will listen to me on the audio platform, so they got to know what I'm doing. But today we're in 2 Corinthians 4, verses 1 through 17. And this is the scripture. It says so we do not lose heart. So we don't lose heart, okay.

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Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day, and I know sometimes it feels like what are you talking about? Like we're building up our inner strength, even though the things around you may look like it's not falling into place the way we want it to, or our self, even our very flesh. Some of us are, you know, not going. You're not feeling the best in our health. Like Tuesday I had just a total wipe out with my allergies. I barely had like a voice, and I thank God that I had. I had Dr Tracy to come in and step in for me because I just couldn't do it. So my outer self was wearing a wasting away, if you will, in that situation. But my inner self was being renewed because it allowed me some downtime, it allowed me to be in quiet time with God. So it actually helped me to be renewed and restored.

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And so for this light, momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. So the things that you're going through right now not intended to break you. I'm going to stop sharing so we can just talk through a few things and I'll bring the scripture back. The light momentary, temporary discomfort. And discomfort does look like debt, d-e-b-t. It does look like pain. It does look like disappointments. It does look like health scare. It does look like when things are falling into place Kids not listening. All the things right. Disobedience, all the things. These are temporary things that's happening to our flesh temporary, it's not meant to destroy you.

Speaker 1:

I'm always curious when people the first thing they do is they say, oh, I'm being cursed or the enemy's doing this. Sometimes the Lord has to squeeze you to get you to fit into the mold that you agreed to right. Lord, use me and Lord bless me. I want to be the breakthrough and the blessings for my family and generations to come, all the things. And then he starts to squeeze you and you become uncomfortable and then you cry out oh God, no, stop, no right. So we're going to talk through. Don't quit in the middle, because a lot of us are. We're on our way, y'all right. So we're going to talk through. Don't quit in the middle, because a lot of us are. We're on our way, y'all right, we're on our way to that. Whatever that destiny, that dream you had, that you know, the final lap for you, whatever it's starting a business or raising a family, building a family, whatever it is the encouragement is for us not to quit in the middle. So I want to share a few things.

Speaker 1:

I went to this conference yesterday and it was a business conference. It really has nothing to do with this, but there were some things that even yesterday, the day before yesterday, that it started to play out for me spiritually, because I'm asking the Lord, even while I'm here show me some things that you want me to learn so that I don't quit in the middle, and some of the things that and so that I don't quit in the middle, okay, and some of the things that the first thing that he showed me was not to lose heart. And it's so awesome because, again here in the, in the very scripture, second Corinthians four, 16 through 17, that I share, it says so we do not lose heart. So, so we don't lose heart, so we don't lose heart while we're in our journey. Okay, so just put yourself now in the position that you're dealing with your job, whatever it is, whatever your thing is, so that you don't lose heart, so that I don't lose heart. There were some parallels that he showed me that I want to encourage and I want to share with you this morning. The first one is a parallel in business. So, again, when I talk about in business, I mean not just your, you know, if you're working for someone as an employee, not in business, not just that, but if you're an employer and I don't care if you have a small business and you're it, or you've got 10 people that work for you or 200, right. So the parallel in business and don't put in the middle means I don't get stuck, don't get stuck in strategy I was talking to this, this one, actually many, many people, but there it was.

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What stuck out to me the most in the parallel of of being stuck and not losing heart was there was some feedback. I was getting insights and all the things from other business leaders and very inspirational all the things. But what I realized was that we have a tendency and we had become stuck. We were doing things from 2016. We were following a 2016 playbook and we're in 2025. And so as I started to listen to that, I started to become encouraged of that parallel that we do in business, where we kind of get stuck and so we just quit, and some of you all have done that in your own career I've been here for 25 years and I'm just trying to retire and you just kind of stuck in a mindset where you refuse to grow or do anything new, challenging or different. Right, and in order for you to get to that next level that you've been praying for, right, that you know I'm praying for promotion. They won't promote me, they won't. But you've been stuck doing the same thing for 20 something years.

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You kind of quit, you quit in the middle, right? So I want to encourage you in business. If you, if you haven't thought about something new or innovative, or if you have no understanding of where the industry is going, I don't want you to quit in the middle. And when you watch competitors you know, kind of flying by you, you're trying to figure out how they're doing this. Right, you know, I don't want you to quit in the middle. I don't want to be. You become stuck in business.

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That's the first parallel, right, don't quit in the middle with that. The second parallel was in our relationships, where a lot of us just refuse to let go of the past, right, and it's this horrible cycle that you keep reliving the pain and the bitterness and how that person hurt you and you'll never forgive them. And blah, blah, blah, blah. And you actually did quit in the middle. You literally refuse to let go of relationships that are broken, that have been broken, that will always be broken, but you hold it on right, and so I don't want that to drag you down. I want to encourage you don't quit in the middle If the Lord has something better for you, including better relationships. You can't get to those new relationships if you're holding on to broken things right. So I don't want you to quit in the middle and just lose hope and lose heart. That it's never going to happen for me and things are just the way they are and that's just how my baby daddy is and all the things. I've heard it all, trust me. Okay, I've heard it all. But in the middle of this race that we're in, I don't want to ask the Lord what truly is for you this season, and I always say it's people, places and things. He will always remove people, places and things from me and he does the same for you if you're obedient to it and you have to be willing to let go right and don't quit right.

Speaker 1:

So the third parallel is our spiritual lives, our spiritual growth, and a lot of us have kind of handed that over to church. Well, I go to church and I'm an usher, I go to church and I'm on the worship team and you just kind of you've. Kind of that has become a parallel where you become stuck because the only worship you know is what you do in front of your very well-spoken pastor and you get really excited. And Sunday night you're you're, you know you're, you're worried about Monday, right? So we've handed over even our spiritual growth and we've passed that accountability and responsibility over to our pastor, our grandmother's praying for us. Listen, all of those things are wonderful, but you can quit in the middle if you don't figure out that you actually have that you have. We have to have an individual relationship with Jesus. It's not my mother praying for me. Okay, wonderful as that is, you can't rely on someone else to save you. Salvation doesn't come from your great grandma.

Speaker 1:

I saw this joke on social media that was saying that um, that, yes, you know are are all the, all our folks. You know, all our folks have died and gone before us. They're not working as customer service in heaven. Your auntie and your grandma is not your angel, okay, you need to have a relationship with God. So I don't want you to quit, even in the middle, as you're being stretched with your spiritual walk and your spiritual growth and things are being open and you're being challenged Don't quit in the middle, right, don't give up. So those three things, I'm going to run through it again and I'm going to come back with the scripture and then we're going to tie it together, we're going to pray and then we're going to bounce, all right.

Speaker 1:

So the first thing again I said, was we started out with not losing heart. I talked about the parallels to business, so not being stuck in strategies or things that you've been doing, and I called out myself because I know there are things we're doing at my job that's from 2016. Okay, and people have kind of quit right in the middle. They refuse to go the next. So you know, lord, give me the strategies. This is the prayer point I use. Lord, give me the strategies so that I can actually be innovative, so that I can move the business forward. If you're a business owner, lord, show me what I need to do so I can move my business forward, and give me all the tools and resources, all the creative ideas, all of everything that I need so that I can move out of this middle. I want to move to what the next is and I don't want to quit now, I don't want to lose hope. So give me all the tools and resources and people and all the things so that I can get out of this space, lord, because I don't want to quit. Right, that's the first prayer point.

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If your parallel is in relationships and you feel like you've got some things that you need to let go of, a lot of us have bitterness in our heart because we're disappointed about what people said or did you know did to us years ago, yesterday, next week, whatever that. Maybe your prayer point is Lord, you know, I don't want to lose heart on relationships Like again, even relationships with your kids. Some of you are so angry with your kids because they didn't do or they didn't play out the life that you had hoped for them. Right, just just for real, okay. So maybe then your prayer point is you know, is, lord, I don't want to lose heart in the relationship with my children or my spouse or my partner, whatever that is right. So, lord, help me to. You know, get past this hump. I don't want to be bitter, I don't want to be disappointed because, believe it or not, that bitterness and disappointment keeps you stuck right there. It keeps you stuck in the middle. So, lord, take this from me. I don't want this business, forgive me for this. Repent over all the things.

Speaker 1:

And then the last parallel was parallel in your spiritual growth, where again we get stuck, where we start trying to figure out the things to do and how to show up. A lot of us have declared ourselves teachers and he didn't tell us we're teachers. There's all kinds of craziness going on right now. So, even just for me, even for my own spiritual growth, I never go forward. I mean, he literally has to push me and then he sends other people to confirm because I am his most stubborn child. Right, I won't do it, okay.

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So you wanna, in your spiritual growth, start asking the Lord. Lord, I don't wanna quit in the middle of this race. I wanna get to know you more. I wanna spend more time with you. Lord, you know, I don't wanna lose heart. I don't wanna stop believing in you. I don't wanna doubt your presence. I don't wanna doubt what your word says about me.

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And then and Lord, you know if there's any bitterness, anything in my heart that's caught, like that, those are kind of prayers. Well, I get, we pray, we, we pray for things. That I think we, we spend a lot of time praying for things and less time praying about. You know. You know, show me, lord, what's in me that you want me to change. Show me, you know, what I'm doing wrong, that you want me to change. Show me what I'm doing wrong. And then when he starts to show that to you, then the intention is for you to get out of that middle. To get out of that middle so you can kind of move to whatever the next thing is for you. So don't quit in the middle. I'm going to bring back the scripture one more time. We're going to pray and then we're going to head out.

Speaker 1:

So, again, this is 2 Corinthians 4, 16 through 17. So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day, but this light, momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. So, lord, I thank you for every person under the sound of my voice and I pray, lord, that none of them lose heart. Thank you for every person under the sound of my voice and I pray, lord, that none of them lose heart, and not only them, lord God, but for any family member, anyone associated with them, their colleagues or anyone they come in contact. I pray that these folks will carry your favor in such a way that they're the light in every single room that they enter and just by showing up, lord God, they're carrying your glory and they're encouraging other people not to lose hope. God, they're carrying your glory and they're encouraging other people not to lose hope.

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Father, we know that there are so many afflictions, temporary afflictions but there's still afflictions, and that affliction might look like loss loss of friends and family, death, loss in finances, loss in relationship, loss of dreams. You know, people had high hopes and dreams and they've lost those. They've lost out on those. They're feeling like they can't do the things they thought they could, even losing jobs, losing peace of mind, losing health. All of these things are God, and though I know that it is temporary, it's still painful and it's still an affliction.

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So today I ask that you will give all of us peace while we're in the middle, while we're in the middle of the storms of life, and, lord God, that you'll help us to get to the other side. Help us not to lose heart, help us not to be bitter, help us not to be filled with doubt, lord God, and give us peace as we get to the other side. I thank you for reminding us that we don't have to be stuck in the middle, that there's more for us, there's better for us, and that you will bless us so that you will be glorified. We thank you that we are still carrying your favor and your divine protection. I thank you that you'll bless every person under the sound of my voice. You know what each of them stands in need of and that you'll hear their cry today. And so today, lord God, as we close out another awesome Thursday morning, we honor you, we bless you and we praise you. Thank you for all and everything you're going to do for them.

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Amen, all right, isn't that awesome. He is so good. Y'all, please don't forget, this is still. I'm just coming back to the room. Amen, this is still. We still serve a true living God. Again, I don't.

Speaker 1:

I just don't want you to feel discouraged, and even if you're in a place right now where you feel like it's all good, then take this as your vitamin shot so that you can get over the next hump, and then you pass the word to somebody else, right? Maybe you're not in the space where you don't feel like you're going to quit, but someone around you might. So I pray that you don't just chew on this for yourself, right? You swallow this word, you digest the word, it becomes a part of you, right? And then you then go out and encourage someone else not to quit. All right. So God bless you. Y'all don't forget this is Thursday, so we've got prayer twice a day today. Dial in, if you can. If you can't, you can still drop your prayer requests. I do actually read all the comments and I hope that this bless you. God bless you and have an amazing rest of your day, take care.