Before You Quit: 5 Things to Do Before You Walk Away

In the early 1950s, an aging restaurant owner got some really bad news. The highway was moving. For years, travelers had stopped at his little roadside restaurant where he built a reputation of serving some pretty good food. Then the new interstate came through, but it didn't come through anywhere near him. Traffic disappeared, businesses dried up. Eventually he sold the restaurant, paid his bills, and found himself in his 60s with very little money and no particularly promising plan B. He could have called it a career. Nobody would have blamed him. Instead, he looked at what he had left. He had an old car, he had a pressure cooker, he had a chicken recipe, and apparently he had absolutely no sense of embarrassment. So the 60-something-year-old man started driving from restaurant to restaurant, asking owners if he could come in to their kitchens and cook them some chicken. The arrangement he proposed was simple. If they liked his recipe, they could use it, and he would receive a few cents for every chicken they sold. Most weren't interested, so he drove to another restaurant, then another. He slept in his car sometimes, he cooked chicken for strangers, he heard no, he kept driving. Eventually somebody said yes, then somebody else did. And another, and another, and by 1964, hundreds of restaurants were serving chicken using the recipe of this aging salesman who had refused to believe that losing his restaurant meant losing his future. His name was, you guessed it, Harlan Sanders. But you probably know him as Colonel Sanders. And those 11 herbs and spices eventually became Kentucky Fried Chicken, which means that one of the most recognizable faces in American business began his greatest chapter at an age when he had every reasonable excuse to quit. Now I'm not suggesting that perseverance will necessarily result in a bucket of chicken and worldwide restaurant empires. Sometimes perseverance doesn't even result in success. But everybody reaches a moment when quitting starts to sound awfully reasonable. Sometimes it's a job, sometimes it's a dream, sometimes it's a marriage, sometimes it's a ministry, sometimes it's a relationship, sometimes we're not planning anything dramatic at all. We just wake up one morning and think quietly, I don't know if I want to do this anymore. And maybe that's not the best moment to make the decision. So before you quit, here are five things worth doing. And don't worry, all five are in the show notes. First, rest before you resign. This one comes straight from Elijah in 1 Kings 18. Elijah has one of those great spiritual victories in his life, and by 1 Kings 19, he's sitting under a tree and asking God to let him die. I love the Bible. You can't make this stuff up. So God's first response is fascinating. He gives them a nap and something to eat. Sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is just go to bed. Exhaustion has a way of making temporary problems feel permanent. So before you write the resignation letter, make the announcement, delete the project, and declare that you're never going to do this again, get some rest. You may still need to make a change, but do it after a great eight. Just don't let your most exhausted self make every important decision. Second, remember why you started. Go back before the frustration, before the criticism, before the numbers disappointed you, before somebody said something that hurt you. Why did you begin? Paul told Timothy to rekindle the gift of God that was within him. That's a beautiful image. Sometimes the fire isn't gone. It's just gotten low. There are moments when we don't need a new calling. We just need to remember the old one. Number three, tell somebody the truth. Not on Facebook. Not everybody in the break room, not the person you know will immediately say, you're absolutely right, quit. Find somebody wise. Then tell them the unedited version. I'm tired. I'm discouraged. I'm angry. I'm not sure if I can keep doing this. Ecclesiastes says that when one person falls, another can help pick him up. But somebody has to know you're down. One of discouragement's favorite tricks is convincing us to isolate ourselves precisely when we need somebody else. Fourth, ask a different question. When things get difficult, our question usually is, How do I get out of this? Try another one. God, what are you doing through this? That's a much more dangerous prayer because sometimes God changes the situation and sometimes God says, I'm working on you. James tells us that the testing of our faith produces endurance. Nobody particularly enjoys endurance while it's being produced. It's like exercise. Everyone likes having exercised. Exercising is the inconvenient part of that. There may be something God is building in you that can only be constructed here. And finally, just do the next thing. This may be the most important one. Stop trying to survive the next five years, will you? You don't have grace for the next five years today. You have grace for today. So what's the next faithful thing? Make the phone call, finish the assignment, prepare the Sunday sermon, apologize, show up, pray, take the walk, have the conversation, then tomorrow ask the question again. Jesus said, Don't worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. Sometimes perseverance doesn't look heroic. Sometimes it looks like smashing the alarm on a Tuesday morning and putting on your shoes. And here's one final word. Sometimes you should quit. There are jobs you should leave. There are projects that have run their course. There are seasons God closes. There are directions that need to change. Faithfulness does not mean stubbornly staying somewhere God is telling you to leave. So the message isn't never quit. It's this don't quit simply because today is hard. Rest. Remember, talk to somebody. Ask what God is doing, and then take one more faithful step. Maybe after all that, God will tell you it's time to move on. And if he does, you can walk away with peace. But maybe you'll discover underneath all the exhaustion and disappointment there is still a little fire burning. And maybe it doesn't need a funeral. Maybe it needs a little oxygen. So before you quit, give God some room to breathe on the embers. And that's today's scattered moments. Hope you'll join me tomorrow. Until then, take heart. Notice the scattered moments and share the grace.