Mrs. PIE

Embracing New Beginnings: Cultivating Hope and Joy Through Life's Trials

Shelley Jeffcoat Season 3 Episode 85

Experiencing the joy of new beginnings becomes profoundly impactful when faced with life's health challenges. I open up about my personal journey of gratitude and divine protection, especially during moments when hope seemed fleeting. Reliving a corporate event where my spirits soared, I share how that joy became contagious among colleagues, turning an ordinary day into one filled with unexpected blessings. From mentoring opportunities to unforeseen recognition, these moments are powerful reminders of the enduring strength found in hope and joy. This episode is a heartfelt call to never hide your light and to embrace the gifts that uplift our spirits during this reflective December season.

Hope isn't just a passing feeling—it's a steadfast belief that can anchor us through life's storms. We venture into the foundational role of hope and discipline in spiritual growth and life success. Divine guidance rather than human expectations becomes our focal point, with God as the ultimate source of joy and peace, inspiring an abundance of hope even amidst trials. As we prepare for the upcoming year, there's a sense of urgency to embrace our unique callings with grace and resilience. By focusing on our divine assignments with discipline and unwavering joy, we're invited to journey together, finding fulfillment and purpose in the path ahead.

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Speaker 2:

no-transcript intro is my favorite. Good morning everybody. Welcome back to another Thursday. Come out of the wilderness, y'all. We have made it to December. Can y'all believe this? Good morning, faithful Tracy. She says she's thanking God for the divine protection through the night.

Speaker 2:

Listen, we can just take a pause and just be thankful there, y'all, it's been a thing. I am. I'm so grateful, thank you, lord, that we have seen this year Again. We're at December and I'm pausing a little bit because I'm also grateful. Just, I'm going through like some health issues, so please pray for me, but I'm just grateful that I'm seeing another day, y'all. Sometimes it's just what we consider, the small things. You know what I mean. So thank you, lord. So thank you, lord, for just giving us an opportunity to come before you again this morning, for allowing me to see a new day, and for all of the blessings and all of the encouragement and all the inspiration that you're going to give to every person under the sound of my voice and for every encounter that we have. That really truly is you and every confirmation giving us as we enter into this season of hope. Thank you, lord, for the joy that's in our hearts and for those who are kind of on empty right now, where they maybe they're tired emotionally, physically, mentally. Lord God, that you'll still give them that seed of hope, the God of hope. So I thank you, lord Jesus, for this morning. I thank you for everything that you're going to do for us this month of December and I thank you for this. I was going to say exacting lesson on hope and joy.

Speaker 2:

So I was at this event yesterday. Y'all know I'm a corporate girly, and so I was at this event yesterday and it started really early, started in thank you, tracy, thank you, dr Tracy and I had to be there kind of early to help out, pitch in, and these are opportunities for me and my role to kind of mix and mingle, if you will, with our employees. But most of the times when I'm volunteering on the job, I'm going for like the thing that I want to do, the thing that nobody else wants to do, so it'll be stuff like setting up a table, wiping down chairs. I don't have an ego, ok, so, but one of the things that I was able to do yesterday, myself and another colleague, we were at the sign-in table, and whenever you put two of us together, for some reason, we are filled with joy, but we're overly brimmingly filled with joy, so anytime people come in contact with us, that's what you get. And so while we were there, I was having the most fun and I realized that while I was there we had people that would kind of come up to the table and these are our colleagues, other employees. They come up to the table and some of them had like long faces because they were tired and as soon as they walked up we said something funny or silly. They lit up and they walked away. And I started to realize because we actually had a comment from a friend of mine that was basically saying we were too bubbly and we were too much in the morning, and I literally was like I'm happy to never come back, because hiding joy is something that I will never do, ever, for no situation, nobody, I don't care who it is. So I realized when I came home yesterday I wasn't feeling well. I was just kind of like dragging a little bit, but my heart was still over bringing with joy.

Speaker 2:

I was counting these various encounters that I had by the time I got home and there were four major things that God had done, that I've, that I watched him do, four blessings that I receive. Again, I'm always on the lookout for his blessings, right, and so I saw these four things happen. One of them was, I mean, maybe something that y'all would consider minor, right, but I had the opportunity to talk to one of my mentors and he was coaching me and reminding me like I need to even I need to have a hobby, I need to take care of myself, and it was somebody pouring back into me. I had another encounter where I was literally physically given an award. That was unexpected. I mean, I'd gotten the recognition. I didn't think it was anything more than that, but I got an actual beautiful award. I got it propped up in my office and I'm really proud of it. I had a couple of other encounters with people just reconnecting. Good morning, yes, good morning. Oh, ricky is in Belize. Amen, amen, praise God for what he's doing everywhere. So as I'm pouring into Ricky talking about joy, he's going to bring it back into the work that he's doing. That's how it works, so.

Speaker 2:

So by the time I got home from my day, I was able to sit and think on these things, right, and think about the joy and the hope that I had. So I wanted to share a couple of scriptures that are gonna help you. And first of all, when we're talking about hope, I just want to make, I guess, make something like I don't know, make it clear or just kind of clarify something. So, when you talk about hope, when you like, look up the definition of hope. It's a feeling, it's a feeling of expectation of something that you want to happen. Right, it's a feeling. I'm not talking about the feels of hope. I'm not talking about a feeling because feeling changed, right, because the minute something happened, you know you get, we get shooketh of that thing, and then you lose that feeling. It shifts from hope to fear.

Speaker 2:

What I'm talking about is a belief. Okay, it's a belief. It's grounded in belief, right? So now I'm going to show you scripture that supports that. See, don't think I'm just making this thing up. The first scripture, I'm going to drop it in the chat. It comes from Hebrew, one verse, one, and it says I'm going to pop it up on the screen. So y'all see it now.

Speaker 2:

Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. There's a lot of different variations on this text. You know the evidence of things not seen and things of that nature. But faith is connected to our hope. So when we think about hope, I'm thinking about what are some of the things that you're hoping for from God. I'm hoping for a promotion, I'm hoping for a healing, I'm hoping for a blessing In Ricky's case he's serving in Belize, you know and hoping that the Lord will show up in such a mighty, powerful way and bless every hand that is there and, you know, really show up and be, you know, show up in good faith, right, you know he's convicted that God is going to come through.

Speaker 2:

So he's he has, his hope is rested on his faith, he believes and he knows that God is going to show up in such a mighty way, because that's who sent him there, right? So that's one way to think about hope. It's not just you know, I feel hopeful. I feel hopeful that I'm going to make it to the event on time.

Speaker 2:

It's not a hope on a fee, it's not based on a feeling, it's based on a knowing. So, because I absolutely know, because I have evidence of things not seen and seen right, I have evidence of things not seen, meaning, I absolutely know, because I have evidence of things not seen and seen right, I have evidence of things not seen meaning. I absolutely know that God has fought some battles for me spiritual, literal, spiritual warfares and moved and shaped some things in my life and that's why, in evidence, as an ambassador, I can stand before you and teach and preach and all the things right. I have evidence of how God has touched the people around me, people aligned into this ministry, people who've been tapping in and getting inspired and encouraged to go out and serve and do the things. That's not a feeling. It's based on a hope that's grounded in a knowing that God is still moving and doing some things. My hope is always aligned to what he can do, not what I can do because I can't do anything Okay, I can't do anything but because my hope is grounded and I have evidence. Y'all, some of us have evidence. If you just stop, like I was sharing, I was able to at the end of the day yesterday. It wasn't a perfect day, but I surely was able to stop at the end of the day and I was able to see the way God moved through some things, not what I did, but what he did and even some things that he was doing through me to help other people, and that is evidence. So that builds up my hope. That helps me to have this unshakable joy that I started telling you about. Like it won't go anywhere, I can't help but have a smile on my face and a song in my heart. I can't help but have this crazy love for Jesus because it comes from a knowing. It's not a feeling of hope. I absolutely know where this is coming from, right, so I want to encourage you.

Speaker 2:

This morning I'm going to give you a couple more scriptures as we're talking again. I'm talking about hope as a belief, not the feeling, because we don't want to lose it. We're going to lose the feeling. So now let me show you something else again from the scripture. I'm going to drop it in the chat, and I think this is also going to bless all of us y'all. So this is going to come from Romans 15, verse 13. By the way, I always use the A Shelley version. It's ESV version, so please feel free to use whatever version you want. But Romans 15, 13,. It says now may the God of hope the God of hope. So also, it's not just again.

Speaker 2:

This is why I'm trying to emphasize hope is not. We're not talking about the feeling, we're talking about the foundation. So, you know, asking Lord, show them and open their spiritual eyes to see you as the God of hope. So we're serving the God of hope, we're not serving the God of doubt, we're not serving the God of fear. So when I tell you that I have my hope, there's a song. My hope is built on nothing less with Jesus Christ, right, you know, my hope is in him because he is the God of hope and it says the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing right. So I'm filled with all joy and peace in believing right. Why? That's because I have the foundation, because my hope is in him. That's what it means to have your hope in Christ. So we're coming into this season of. This is a season of hope.

Speaker 2:

When he gave me this, he gave me this teaching for this particular month. Again, I get them. I get my teachings in advance. I don't talk to nobody. I just, you know, hear what the Holy Spirit say. I, you know, plan the thing out. I schedule the podcast and I come on and teach it. He shows up, does his thing and that's it. That is it OK. But when he showed me the word hope for this month of December. I didn't realize, realize how important it is for where we're going until maybe a few moments ago, where we're going from December to where we're going next year.

Speaker 2:

Our theme for next year, for this ministry, is one word it's discipline. And we're breaking that down over the next 12 months and how we live. Discipline, whether it's in our finance, it's in our health, it's in our spiritual walk, it's, you know, it's how we serve or work with each other, it's in our relationship Right, it is one word is discipline. But you're not going to be able to submit to that kind of discipline. Where he's going to take us, right, we're asking him for the promotion, but he's going to, you know, he's going to put you in a position where you're going to have to learn and be prepared so that you don't squander the promotion or the promotion doesn't destroy you, right? But before you even get to that right baby steps, you have to understand the God you serve, that he's the God of hope and that he's going to fill you with all joy and peace in believing.

Speaker 2:

And then it says comma, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit, you may abound in hope. So it's not like I said. It's not like I said, it's not us doing it by ourselves. It's the power of the Holy Spirit that is helping us to do this. Without him in our lives, if we're trying to do this through affirmations where we kind of pluck out an I am statement, or you try to kind of read a friendly book or journal your way through it, it's not going to work. It's by the power of the Holy Spirit. With him. That's how we are able to abound in hope.

Speaker 2:

Why do we need the Holy Spirit? Why do we need Jesus involved in every decision and every conversation that we have, not just this month of December, as we're building up our foundation in hope, some of us have kind of lost our step a little bit because what we wanted in December we didn't get. So some of us are pouting. Can we just be honest? Some of us are pouting, me included, lord. I thought I was going to be much further than I am right now. What's going on right? So this is so important, so that we don't lose hope.

Speaker 2:

Hope impacts our joy, hope impacts our peace, it impacts our faith and what we believe in right. The Holy Spirit is not going to fight you. He's not going to. You know, stop listening to these songs about the Lord chasing the one. Listen, god is not. There's so much confusion with the way that we see God. God is spirit. God is not man. That makes sense. Right, there are ways that he's gonna favor you, that he's not gonna favor me, because you've been called for something that I'm not called for something. Each of us are running our individual races, right, each of us have been called right, not just me. Right, we all have our different calls. You have your assignment. Your assignment might be a mom, a dad or an analyst, a banker, a preacher, a teacher or whatever. An exec your various assignments and where he sends you right, according to the grace and the gifts and the talent that he's given you. But we can't squander that. Next year, we're not squandering that.

Speaker 2:

So, before we even get to 2025, when we become more disciplined in our gifts, our talents and where we're going, all the things right you have to start with this foundation, with God being your hope. If you don't put your hope in him, you'll end up putting your hope in man and start expecting other people to get you where you're trying to go. God uses people right. We're all on this plane together. That is true. He's going to use you as well.

Speaker 2:

But your hope isn't in the situation. Your hope isn't in your boss treating you a certain way. Your hope isn't in whether or not your colleagues come through or your wife or your spouse come through for you. Your hope isn't in if your child calls you back. Shade intended right. That's not where your hope. Your hope is in the God of hope and that he fills you with all joy despite everything that's happening all around you. He gives you all peace. Despite everything that's happening around you, your faith isn't shooketh because something happens and then you may abound. When I think about abound, I just think of like my heart just leaping, leaping, and that's why I can have unshakable joy in everything. You know what happens. Let me stop pull this scripture down from the screen.

Speaker 2:

You know what happens when you're that person. You ever meet some people and they walk in and just naturally you just gravitate toward them. I always tell folks like you know, folks that I'm coaching that if you're the person, when you walk in the room, nobody like the environment shifts in a way that people start to walk away from you or their their faces change Like they don't want to be around you. Clearly, the problem is a you problem, not a them problem. Right, when you walk in, when you're someone that has that kind of true, genuine, unshakable joy, the kind of joy that leaps out of your spirit, right, based on what the Holy Spirit is doing in you, right, when you're that person that has that unshakable joy, it is so amazing. What starts to happen is everything starts to get pulled toward you.

Speaker 2:

And this is where, like you know, folks who are in you know they studied, not Christianity, but they studied kind of the worldview. So even the counterfeits, they have some things, right, remember, the devil counterfeits things, but there is something about our energy and the way we show up. We draw things to us and we repel things away from us. Okay, and so when you walk in and you have your foundation of hope in Christ, knowing, truly believing, that God's got me everything that I've, you know, everything that I'm, I'm, I'm hoping for, he's got me. I don't have to worry about what the, whatever the situation looks like, he's got me physically, spiritually, mentally, financially. He, financially, he's gonna, you're gonna require discipline for next year. So when he gives you that, when he gives you that discipline. You're gonna have to follow some things out, right? So what does that look like for you? But you've got to start with this foundation, the god of hope. This is where we start. Isn't that amazing? Isn't that amazing? Isn't that amazing? Isn't that amazing? Amen I'm just looking at the chat real quick, so sure I might mess up your name that she has in her.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, she has her already. Hope, hope is happiness, opportunity, peace and be enough and be more than that's powerful. Yeah, by the way, like when I'm giving you, when I'm sharing some of these things, I want you to ask the Lord to discern what it means for you individually. Right, you know, have a great day, ricky Price. God bless you and every person that you're going to touch and your family touches today. Ricky, you know you got to. You got to think about that. You know, whenever you come. You know I shared this in our earlier teaching.

Speaker 2:

I think it was that kind of behind the scenes on Tuesday night, we have our fellowship, if you will. So those are videos. You can go back live prayers we do. But one of the things that I shared was you need to be able to when you get a teaching, even if it's from your pastor. You've been going there for 50 years. I don't care who it is. You need to go back to the Holy Spirit and have him help you discern what are the things that he wants you to see specifically for you to help you. So, just like that, I'm watching Sheree declaring what hope is for her in 2025. Okay, what hope is for her in 2025. And that's powerful, right. It's not as Shelly did it, it's her and the Holy Spirit doing it All right. So, sherea, I pray that God's going to bless you in every area happiness, opportunity, peace and being more than enough.

Speaker 2:

More than enough, right, Lord. I thank you. I thank you for that. I thank you, lord, for discernment. I thank you for every person that showed up this morning. Our Father, I thank you that you will, just for, especially for those who are so emotionally and physically tired, lord God, that you just give them abounding joy, and the kind of joy that doesn't make any sense, the kind of peace that passes all understanding. We are in this month of December. We are so grateful for the foundation, how we're closing out this year, lord, god, I pray that this December, when we see the next December in 2025, it's going to look nothing like it. We're going to be so blessed it's going to be crazy. I thank you for all of the confirmations that are coming for us, lord God, as we are closing out this year so we can springboard into next year.

Speaker 2:

Lord God, I thank you for giving us hope this morning, filling our hearts with joy. Lord God, I pray that when we're the people, that when we walk in a room, we're not repelling people. People are being drawn to us because of your Holy Spirit working through us, because of the fruits of the Spirit through us. So that's what I ask this morning that you give us your supernatural favor, your mercy, your peace and your joy. Thank you for the hope that is in Christ. Lord, we know that you use people to work with us, to bless us, because we are all human. So we thank you for the divine help that you have already sent. Lord, help us to discern those who you truly sent to work alongside of us. Help us to be in alignment with your will for our lives, and I thank you for hope.

Speaker 2:

I thank you for ridiculous joy this morning, happiness and peace and all those things this season, especially for those who are God, who are, who might be suffering. You know they still have a loss, but you give them the kind of peace because their hope and their knowing, their knowing and their truly believing that you're going to come through. I pray for every person who stand in need of a job, lord God, or a financial blessing or help for their families, healing health issues. Lord God, I pray that you will lift their spirits this morning and give them a confirmation and an encounter that they will know they won't lose hope and they will still be filled with joy and know that you're coming through for them. I thank you that you're destroying everything that the enemy had set out for us to take us off track, anything that was going to stop us from being disciplined and staying focused on what you've asked us to do. Thank you that this month of December is not just a month of remembering who you are and the birth of Jesus, but is really experiencing true hope and joy this month. Thank you, god, for this season of hope that you've given us. We bless your holy name. Amen, amen, y'all.

Speaker 2:

Y'all have a great rest of your Thursday. I hope that helped you. I hope that blessed you. I know it did for me. Y'all have an amazing rest of your Thursday. Please take care of yourselves. Please forgive yourselves. Some of us are still flogging ourselves. We've already went to the Lord, we asked for forgiveness. He forgave us and we still beating ourselves down. We got to let it go. We're not taking that into January, so we're going to let that sit right here in December. All right, all right, I love y'all. Have an amazing rest of your day and I will be back next week. See ya, thank you.