Mrs. PIE

Letting Go and Moving Forward: Spiritual Wisdom and Guidance

• Shelley Jeffcoat • Season 3 • Episode 47

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Ever wondered how a disciplined prayer life can lead to monumental breakthroughs? This episode is a heartfelt journey into the power of faith and prayer, starting with the significance of our cherished Thursday prayer line, Three Praying Sisters. Available at 1 PM and 7 PM, these 30-minute sessions are more than just a routine—they’re a lifeline for spiritual connection and growth. We delve into this month’s theme of "Breakthrough" and how it ties into our mission to SOAR, recapping our series on overcoming obstacles and renewing our spirits through the power of disciplined prayer and strong faith, all underscored by the inspiring message of Nehemiah 6:15-16.

Imagine setting out on an ambitious project destined to fail without divine intervention. Reflecting on Nehemiah 6:15-16, this episode explores the awe-inspiring achievements that come with God's guidance. I share a personal story about how a Muslim man's dedication to prayer inspired me to incorporate a disciplined prayer routine into my own life. This episode emphasizes the significance of disciplined prayer in sustaining spiritual breakthroughs and achieving great works, encouraging listeners to undertake endeavors that ensure they rely on God's support and guidance.

Moving forward, we discuss the necessity of letting go of dead relationships, places, and behaviors that hinder our progress. Learn how to sustain your breakthroughs by avoiding a return to past negative mindsets and environments. The episode concludes with a powerful discussion on seeking God's wisdom for our future and the importance of sharing our testimonies to inspire others. Plus, don’t miss the announcement about our upcoming "Rebirth" event at Eastgate Church—a transformative prayer revival that promises to be a life-changing experience. Join us, and let's continue to thrive in new settings with God’s strength and wisdom guiding our way.

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Speaker 1:

no-transcript.

Speaker 2:

We have a lot of promos because we've got a lot of stuff going on and we need y'all to know about it, so good morning y'all, this is, you know, one of my favorite days of the week Thursdays, not only because of this particular program.

Speaker 2:

So, obviously, you know, come out of the wilderness. So good morning from wherever you're watching. And also, hey, to those folks who listen to us on the audio version of this podcast towards the end of the week. But this is one of my favorite days Thursdays because also on Thursday, we have a phone prayer line called Three Praying Sisters, and this is at one o'clock and seven o'clock. You can see the phone number scrolling, but it's such a great way to just connect. It's 30 minutes of prayer. Y'all can put this on your calendars. For those of you who might want to take a quick break during the day and just call in and we pray with you. We pray with you, we pray for you and we stand believing for whatever it is that you need. It's open to everybody and it's open in the US and the UK. There is no charge. We don't need a seed. This is just a group of us praying. And so what has been so great?

Speaker 2:

As we've been going through this series and as I was sitting here thinking about, every month this year we've had a specific series. So this series. This month the theme is Breakthrough. Our overarching theme for Come Out of the Wilderness prayer ministry is SOAR. So we've really been leaning into how we can be built up to be successful not just in business, but also improving our spiritual lives, having a better life with the Lord, having a deeper connection, how we treat the people around us all those things, people around us, all those things. But Thursdays is one of my favorite days because it's kind of a combination of not just this again, teaching and prayer, but serving our community through prayer and just a way for me to connect back to a lot of folks.

Speaker 2:

Some people are watching the replay, so I wanted to say a quick thank you to everybody who has been subscribing to our channels and watching these videos, and I really hope and pray that this is blessing you. And, by the way, if it is blessing you, if you could just give us a like on the videos, that helps us with the algorithm so other people can get to see it. That's just how it works, y'all All right. So, lord, I just thank you that you brought us again to another Thursday. I thank you for blessing every person under the sound of my voice and whatever they're standing in need of. I pray that you'll release it to them today, that if it's my word, if you're using me to encourage someone, that you'll give me the right words to say and that they will see you and not me Amen. So we are in the final week of our series called Breakthrough, and you know what? Y'all go back and watch the rest. It's been amazing A lot, you know. I've heard the people say it's been a blessing.

Speaker 2:

So the first week we talked about overcoming some of our obstacles and we leaned into Hezekiah's prayer for deliverance, that's in 2 Kings 19,. For those of y'all who want to go back. But what we talked about in week one was how to seek God's intervention in situations that we might think is impossible and turning to him in times of need before we run to people. He will send you the help, but really turning to God first when we need help. The second week we talked about the renewal of our mind and our spirits and we focused on Ezekiel's vision of the Valley of Dry Bones and how God can really revitalize what to us might seem like it's hopelessly dead. Last week we talked about the power of faith and prayer and how they kind of go hand in hand. It's very hard for you to have bold prayers if you don't even believe in God. If you're not, you know, if you don't have an assurance that he's going to respond. And so I was encouraging us last week, as we do, we also have live prayers on Monday mornings at 6.30 and Tuesday nights at 8.30, right, we are a praying community, but I was really hoping to motivate all of us to go to God and pray boldly for our needs. So today we're talking about celebrating and sustaining the breakthroughs that many of us have had.

Speaker 2:

And again, when I talk about breakthroughs, I'm not just talking about you got this check, you didn't expect, okay. I'm talk about breakthroughs. I'm not just talking about you got this check, you didn't expect, ok. I'm talking about breakthroughs in terms of even some of us in our faith being stronger, our prayer lives being more disciplined. You know, really setting aside time, not just having a beautiful prayer closet. You know, wonderfully, made prayer closet and you come out and you're a hot mess, right.

Speaker 2:

But we're going to lean into Nehemiah 6, verses 15 through 16. I am going to share my screen because this is a couple of verses and I think this is going to help us kind of sometimes. Sometimes I need you to not hear, not just hear the word. I need you to see it. I need you to see it for yourself, okay. So this is the version. The version I use is the English standard ESV version, english standard version. I playfully call it the A Shelley version because sometimes when I'm in the word I feel like that's how the Lord is A Shelley, like hold up. And so Nehemiah 6, it says this, and the caption in the Bible and the caption over this particular scripture says the wall is finished.

Speaker 2:

So again, remember, you know, in the month of July we spiritually recognize this spiritually, I mean biblically, okay as the month of completion. The Lord, god, completed creation in seven days and so that's why, prophetically, we look at the number seven, we recognize number seven as completion. So we've been talking about this being the month also of you know, completing. You know God completes what he started in you and for some of us, when we talk about completion, it doesn't mean that all of the things that you've been given are completed. For some of us it's being reminded that the promise that God made for you, that what he started in you will finish. So in this month of July. We kind of pulled down on that.

Speaker 2:

But again, for a lot of us we've actually done some things that was finished. So, for example, for our ministry, something that was a huge milestone and was completed this month was our supporting the International Academy of Smyrna. I'm going to keep talking about this forever. Y'all can just get tired of me talking about it, but we were able to fill 50 backpacks for kindergartners at this school and deliver it in July. So it was completed, this assignment, and also had enough of an overflow so we could bless the teachers and staff. So that's something that was completed. That was an assignment the Lord gave us a couple months ago and we were able to complete it. So it came to completion. That's something that we prayed for, lord. I want to, you know, complete this assignment. So here we are now in Nehemiah 6, and it says so the wall was finished on the 25th day of the month Elul, in 52 days, and when all our enemies heard of it, all the nations around us were afraid one and fell greatly in their own esteem.

Speaker 2:

Now I'm going to break this down a little bit for us. So the first thing is, when you're thinking about, maybe something to you. That's a wall, something that you're building. So maybe you're building your business or you're building a relationship, maybe you're building back your health in terms of exercising, or maybe you're building your emotional health, you're going through therapy, maybe. Whatever it is, there's a wall, there's something that you are building up in your life. So, when that was finished, right. So for me, when the wall that I'm building, whatever it is that I'm building is finished, what it says in verse 16 is I'm going to take the first part. And when all our enemies heard of it.

Speaker 2:

Now, if you think about this spiritually, when you are building and creating things in your life, a lot of times, if you are building and creating things in your life, a lot of things that you know, a lot of times, if you're smart, things that you're doing, you won't tell people until you're done. Okay, some of us talk too much, right, but people are watching what we're doing, and not just the people who support us, but the people who don't, people who you know, who are seeing that what you're doing and they start visualizing themselves as being a part of your journey and they start showing up. Right, but it tells you that, as you're in the middle of building or creating something. Again, sometimes it's like for those of y'all who maybe the Lord inspired you to write a book or start a business, or maybe he's inspired you to be a better manager, a better leader or whatever it is inspired you to be a better colleague, maybe he's inspired you to go out and evangelize the word, or whatever. He's inspired you to volunteer at your church.

Speaker 2:

And when people hear about it, sometimes it's friends and foes. When they hear about it, right, people hear what you're doing. So that's the first part. The second part, though, it says and all the nations around us. They were afraid and fell greatly in their own esteem. They were afraid because they saw, they perceived, they understood that, first of all, this work has been accomplished with the help of God. It's not something that you did by yourself, right? And so when people see this, right, when people recognize that there's something different about I'm going to stop sharing my screen there is something. Y'all got to say that to the people who listen to me. Okay, there's something different about this one, there's something different about this program, there's something different about this project. There's, you know, when people, they start to perceive that what you have done.

Speaker 2:

You know, I ask God, you know, give me things that are so great that it is deemed to fail if you're not in it. That is a theme, a prayer point. It's something that I got from my church, a perimeter church here in Georgia. Now again, here's another thing for those of y'all who are running out to create ministries make sure you're covered and aligned to his word, his church, right. Don't just throw up a ministry so I'm just dropping that for somebody there.

Speaker 2:

But that's something that I was taught through our church, right, that as you're going out to build something, you know I pray that, lord, if you're sending me out to do something, I don't want to just do small things. Right, make it be so big that it's doomed to fail unless you're in it, because that means that it's guaranteed you will send the help, you will. You means that it's guaranteed you will send the help, you will create the path, you will open the doors and all the things right, doomed to fail if God's not in it. So that's the second part of Nehemiah. So that was Nehemiah 6, 15 through 16.

Speaker 2:

Again, they perceived that his work had been accomplished with the help of God. So here we are now in the last week of breakthrough and again, you might've experienced breakthrough in your prayer life, like you know, even you know developing the discipline to have a prayer life. So there's something else and again I'm just dropping it for those of y'all who are going to listen to this later there's something that, um, my spiritual mother, she said, um, a while back, and it, it, it was very powerful and I'm going to share it with y'all. So, christians, I'm talking to y'all, I'm talking to us, okay, y'all need to listen, christians that she shared this experience that she had as she had gone to a store and the gentleman that worked at the store, he was Muslim and he had to stop the transaction because it was time to pray, and so he stopped the transaction, excused himself because he needed to go and pray, and so, as a Christian woman, she said that was so powerful because many of us don't, we won't stop, we won't do that, we don't have the discipline, and so something else that I learned from that is even on my work calendar, I will block out time on Thursdays at one o'clock. You will not find me, I am not available because that is a time that has been set aside for me to meet with God, and I meet with God through the three praying sisters, right? But that was a breakthrough for me, because I am a workaholic, I love to work, I love to have my hands, I love to fix things, I'm very strategic in my thinking, I love to get, I love to solve puzzles. That's my thing.

Speaker 2:

And that was a breakthrough for me that I knew I needed to have more discipline. Y'all, I'm in the word, right? Obviously right. I'm on here teaching, preaching five times a week, so I am in the word. But I needed that discipline. I needed a meeting place that interrupted my schedule for him. I needed to drop God in my day, right. Maybe for you it's okay six o'clock every morning, that's where God's going. I'm going to meet him, I'm going to meet him in my closet, meet him myself, whatever it is.

Speaker 2:

But I want you to think about not making it so easy. We've fallen into the convenience. So you pray at six and you're like I'm good for the day, and yet the word says prayer without ceasing Doesn't mean you have to be on your knees for 24 hours, but it's that we have our heart in a position where we're we're constantly listening for him, we're listening for his guidance, right. But for me, again, I'm just sharing for myself that, after hearing her share that story, that teaching about you know, even for her she was like I had to develop the discipline that, yeah, I need to interrupt my schedule. Right, I need to break my schedule so that God's involved in the things that I'm doing during the day.

Speaker 2:

Maybe your lunchtime, you know so again, maybe you did a prayer when you step your foot out of your bed, but maybe lunchtime you just set five minutes apart where you can just thank God for you know what he did gave you lunch, right, gave you, gave you a job, gave you energy, give you strength, whatever, it is right. That's a breakthrough. So so, as we're talking about that, you know all the things that have happened over this month. I think I just wanted to share that again. I don't know why, I don't know who's for, but I need to tell you that. So now we're, as we're, celebrating and sustaining the things that we've done, here again, this is where you know don't lose the discipline. Don't lose the discipline that you developed through a breakthrough this month. So for me, as I kind of keep using this example, this breakthrough of having a disciplined prayer life. He gave me a place to go. So it's not just me just praying on myself. So now I'm tapping into the phone prayer line right. So through this discipline, I am sustaining it by maintaining the discipline to keep doing what he told me to do. Here's another thing If part of your breakthrough was that he has removed people out of your life and they come floating back up, right, and your breakthrough is to not go back, one of the messages that I shared is that I have a no return policy.

Speaker 2:

If God has moved you, if you, if you hurt, if you disrespected, if you were nasty, and he has removed you from my life, you are not coming back. God bless you, but you ain't coming back. I have a no return policy. When I had to go through a breakthrough that was emotional because I was holding onto dead relationships, right Relationships where literally the Lord had cut the thread and I was holding on like no right, no, maybe the intentions were bad. I was that person okay, not anymore. But that breakthrough for me was letting go of dead things, and that meant people, that meant places and that meant things. It meant people that he removed from my life, places where I used to go and things I used to do and say, and so how I'm sustaining that is, I'm not going back. I have a zero return policy. I cannot go back to where God pulled me from.

Speaker 2:

If you have a mindset where you are consumed with fear and doubt and you've gone through a breakthrough this month you cannot go back to where you came from. Don't go back to where you came from. You have to be able to sustain that. So what you do is in the gap now that you've, so you've let these things go. If you've let go of fear and doubt, it now means that you have to fill that gap with something that is inspiring and encouraging. You've got to change your environment. Sometimes you can't change the environment that you're in, so God will pull you out of that environment and put you in somewhere new, and it's going to be icky for a while because you got to get used to this new skin in this new place. This new environment that you're in but you're meant to excel and succeed is now setting you up to fail. But while you're in this new environment, this new mindset, breakthrough and all these things that have shifted for you over this month, you've got to be able to sustain it. So that means do not go back to the behaviors or the people or the mindset or what you used to say about yourself, or the fear or the doubt. Don't go back. We're not going back. We are moving forward. Bless people and move forward and don't apologize for that. Okay, bless them, you know. Let them be on their way and keep it moving. If somebody hurt you, you know, two weeks, 20 years, 10 days, whatever it is, bless them and keep it moving. You don't need to bring that carcass, that dead relationship, where we're going. We are soaring for the rest of this year. Right?

Speaker 2:

There's a verse, that scripture, that the Lord gave me in February 2022 for myself, and I'm going to share it with you. Just one of the verses, right, and this is in Isaiah 42, verse 9. And it says behold the former things have come to pass and new things I now declare. Meaning the Lord is declaring new things in your life, okay, but it says before they spring. Is declaring new things in your life? Okay, and it's, but it says before they spring forth. I tell you of them. So what does that mean? It means that if you ask God to give you wisdom to speak to you about the things that are coming. He will do that, so ask him to give you wisdom for where you're going next, right Wisdom and understanding and knowledge about where you're going next, who you know, who is in your path. Are you on the right track? That's a part of how you sustain the breakthrough that you have. So I hope this helped y'all. I really hope this bless you. We have come so far, y'all.

Speaker 2:

This has been four weeks studying breakthrough and again, for those of y'all who have experienced breakthrough, you know, don't over, don't overlook the fact that sometimes you might think it's, oh, it's too small to be considered a breakthrough. And yet you have a powerful testimony. And I tell folks all the time do not swallow your testimony. There is someone who could be inspired or encouraged by what you have just come through. Right what might have taken other people out. God has sustained you so that your testimony can help somebody else. So don't swallow your testimony.

Speaker 2:

Amen, and sustain the breakthrough. Right your habits, the people you're around, the places that you go. They should align with where you're going, not where you've been. There's a prayer. I said I'll leave you with this and then I'll close us out. Right before we went live and I just said thank you, lord, that where I started is not where I am. Thank you, lord, that where I started is not where I am. Maybe that's just a simple prayer. I wrote it down because I was like, oh, thank you, lord, that where I started is not where I am, but I'm telling you I ain't going back, amen.

Speaker 2:

So, lord, I thank you for breakthroughs this month. I thank you for testimonies this month. I thank you for all that you have done for all of us, renewing our minds, for opening new doors, for putting us on the right track, for meeting us this month, as we have been learning about breakthrough, been seeking your face and you have shown up time and time and time again. Lord, I pray for every person under the sound of my voice who is seeking a breakthrough in their area of life, whether it's financial, it's emotional, lord, those who have lost loved ones, those who have lost jobs, people who are standing in need of better health reports. Lord, god, that they will see a breakthrough. The month is not over and we stand believing, lord, that what your words say is true, that you're a God that loves us, that we are the apple of your eye that you bless us. We thank you for your mercy and your grace. We thank you that you will give us wisdom and understanding so we'll know the right decisions to make, so that we can keep moving forward. Lord, I ask that you will strengthen us so that we'll sustain the breakthrough and create a life that's disciplined with prayer. I thank you, lord, for the people that are under the sound of my voice, who are believing and seeking you out, that you'll meet them wherever they are. I pray that you will declare over their lives that what you started you will finish. Amen. Y'all isn't that amazing. So listen, september 7th of this month is our annual I can say that now our annual in-person Come Out of the Wilderness prayer revival, and I'm so humbled, grateful and I'm trying not to tear up my glasses that we are being sponsored by the Eastgate Church. That's huge to have a church come and protect you, cover you, amen.

Speaker 2:

So September 7th, if you go to graceandgritmediacom, you can register. It's free and it's for men and women. It's called Rebirth, so you might've seen that video run in the promo video. That's what that is. So it's called Rebirth. It's going to be powerful. September 7th y'all is going to be amazing. I've seen it, I've been there. It's going to be amazing. So seen it, I've been there is going to be amazing. So that's rebirth at September 7th. If you're out of town, you need to buy your tickets and come. It's, it's, it's only a couple of hours on a Saturday, you can fly back out and you can drive back home.

Speaker 2:

September 7th, eastgate church, and that is me leading our, our, our, our, powerful, amazing prayer revival. So y'all, have a wonderful rest of your Thursday. If you could do me a solid when you watch this video, like it, but share it with a friend, share it on your network, get the word out to bless somebody else who might wanna hear something encouraging today. Y'all, I love you, I will be back, don't forget. The prayer phone line is at one o'clock and seven o'clock. Eastern is free, and you can call in from the US and the UK, and so I hope to hear your voices on that line. God bless you, take care.