Finding and Spreading Joy

Spring's promise of new beginnings nudges us to embrace joy, that divine gift which outlasts the fleeting moments of happiness. 

 This episode is a call to action, urging us to not only find solace in joy but to champion it, lifting each other up with every interaction. Let's start our week with this nourishing thought: be the encourager you seek, and come back next Monday for another inspiring message that will set a positive tone for your days ahead.

Now get out into the world and be a woman who intentionally encourages another! 

#women #podcast

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Finding Joy Through Faith and Trials

Speaker 1 0:30

Good morning Encouragers . Welcome back to the Encourage , our Community podcast . Happy Monday , Alright . So I hope that each of you had a wonderful Easter last week and that you enjoyed the series that we did leading us up to and preparing our hearts for Easter . I really enjoyed it . I'd love for that to be a rhythm in my life , just like it is at Christmas time with Advent . So if you didn't get a chance , you can always go back and re-listen to the scripture that leads up to Easter , and it will be there now and we can try it again next year . So I hope you enjoyed that .

Speaker 1 1:06

And then last week you heard from a good friend of mine , cheryl , and we did sort of like a what's God up to update in someone's life . Those podcasts you'll hear occasionally and they'll pop in here and there and we'll get to hear from someone and what God is up to . And the reason for that is because we spend so much time learning about God , learning his story , learning our story , our inheritance , our storyline of God from the word of God . We spend a lot of time learning and I think sometimes it's a real blessing to hear someone how someone is experiencing God . So we're learning about him . We are hopefully experiencing him for ourselves as well . But then , on top of that , I just think it helps to hear other stories and be reminded of what an amazing and incredible God that we serve .

Speaker 1 2:01

So I wanted to do a podcast today about joy and coming off of Easter and heading into spring , with the weather changing and the birds chirping , you literally hear creation exclaiming joy . You hear joy , you see joy in the flowers that bloom and I'm wondering if you're feeling joy and how you would define that . So before I start , let me just open us up in prayer . Dear Lord , thank you for this time , thank you for technology and just your word that really grounds us , our life , that we get to live the breath that we get to breathe today , and all of the listeners tuning in to be encouraged . I pray that they would also turn around and encourage someone else with this message today that you , lord , are joy In your name . Amen . All right , ladies . So one thing that I've been thinking about recently again is this word joy , and I love words . If you've listened to the podcast for a while , you know I like to look up definitions of words and I love how many different organizations or books or authors define words in a unique way , so I'm going to read you a few definitions of joy and then I wonder what you think about when you think about the word joy . So here are a few that I found that I thought were really interesting .

Speaker 1 3:34

The emotion that's evoked by well-being , success or good fortune , a state of happiness or felicity I love that . A source or cause of delight , this one's good Joy is darkness dispelled . Joy is gladness , not based on circumstances . Joy is the feeling you get when your professor cancels your AM class . Joy is the feeling you get when your professor cancels your AM class is a jewel through and through . Joy is a gift from God and we get to thank him every day .

Speaker 1 4:39

Joy isn't the extreme version of happy . Joy is a way of being . Those are a few ways that people have defined joy and I don't know how you would define it . I don't know what you're thinking about .

Speaker 1 4:56

As I said recently , as I take walks and I hear birds chirping and I see flowers blooming , I see my kids outside more often and I hear the basketball hitting the pavement and my boys playing , I just feel joy . There's like something instant that almost happens with the weather change for me . I don't know if you're similar , but I hear that a lot that people can struggle in the wintertime to have as much joy . And yet when warmer weather comes and we get outside into the fresh air , we get to move our bodies a little more , we seem to have more joy and , as I said , we can literally hear creation at this time of the year just singing and pronouncing joy . It's amazing and I hope that you can kind of tune into that this season and really take note of it and let it change your moment , let it kind of give you some perspective about your day , because we have some hard , heavy days . That's just true . We live in the world . It's not easy , and many of you are going through hard things , maybe unknowns or sorrow . Maybe you've been in that winter kind of funk or depression , and I just want to encourage you to remember our source of joy .

Speaker 1 6:25

So , something I have really struggled with , probably since 23 , I have really struggled with probably since 23 . I think I I'm sure I've always struggled with it actually , but I think when I first um started to really notice it is after I lost my mom , uh , in a sudden passing . I was 24 and I clearly was going through trauma . I clearly was going through trauma . My life was just kind of frozen and I can remember I wasn't really smiling much . If I was , it was definitely phony . I wasn't laughing . There were years without a belly laugh . I can remember the first time I belly laughed again and it was like five years after she passed . I hadn't even realized at that time that I wasn't like really laughing . I was just frozen , like I said , and in the pit , in the pit and just kind of trying to find my way out . And it was then that I found the Lord . But my finding the Lord brought my eyes up and yet I was still in the pit . So there was a process there to learn to rely upon him to pull me out of the pit .

Speaker 1 7:37

But that wasn't an overnight thing , and one of kind of the lingering effects of my old self is this , this need for like an instant gratification of joy . I love to have fun , I love to feel good , I love spontaneity , and whatever makes me feel good quick is something that I would go to . So I had for a long time like a pretty serious soda addiction , which sounds so ridiculous but it is so true , and it took me about three decades , two and a half decades , to kick it , because it was a quick fix , it made me feel good and I moved about my day . It didn't solve anything . It actually just created more problems .

Speaker 1 8:22

But this idea of just like instant joy and the problem with instant gratification or instant joy is obviously that it's fleeting , it's not permanent , it isn't transformative , it's just a quick band-aid . It doesn't solve any of your problems . So , you know , I'd encourage you to think about whether you do that in your life , and I don't think the things we choose thankfully , the things I was choosing for instant gratification weren't incredibly toxic or harmful to my body or my lifestyle , but they certainly weren't healthy . They certainly didn't make me long-term happy and what ends up happening is you can be in this cycle of gratification , this kind of crazy cycle where you have a need , you have a struggle , you have a pit moment , if you will , and you just fill it with stuff and then it runs out . You know it dries up and you're back and you're not really better than you were .

Speaker 1 9:23

And knowing that God doesn't give instant gratification is important to understand that true joy comes from the Spirit and it's not something that we can get in this world . It's not something we can quick fix or quick grab and go . It's a process . You know , he's a gardener and walking with Him and learning from him often isn't an instant process . Of course he's God , so he can do something instantly . He can do miraculous things instantly and I believe he still does . But most of the time he wants us to learn . And in seasons of waiting or relying upon him , or these pit seasons where we're trying not to just rely upon earthy things , which would be the instant gratification things , but we're trying to rely upon God's promises , god's truth , god's word , time with him . It takes diligence , it takes obedience , it takes discipline to not be tempted by things that we might just use as a quick fix Again , not that they're all evil , but really trying to just kind of rely upon him and lean in to growth and lean in to the process , because he has something incredible and amazing on the other side .

Speaker 1 10:47

I want to read a few verses that talk about joy , which I think challenge us to look at this world and our own needs and desires from like the upside down perspective . Right , much of the Christian life is this very upside down way of living . It doesn't always make sense . One example would be talking about having joy and In trials . You know it says count it all joy when you meet trials . In James 1-2, . Count it all joy , like all things joyful . But the truth is we can have joy because we know that the Lord is working . We know that there is a place that we go to after this . There is a God who loves us and cares for us and knows and sees all things . We can have joy when we meet trials because we know that God is going to do something in that trial . We know that he's protected us from something else . Most likely he's bringing us to a new place maybe .

Speaker 1 11:56

It says in Proverbs that a joyful heart is like good medicine Proverbs 17 , 22, . A joyful heart is good medicine , but a crushed spirit is dried up the bones . It just dries up your bones and that made me think about like when our spirit is just crushed into the pit . We're just dry . We need that hydration right , that renewal from the Lord , and that can bring us joy . Joy is from the spirit . In Galatians 5.22 , it says but the fruit of the spirit is love , joy , peace , patience , kindness , goodness , faithfulness .

Speaker 1 12:38

We can't have true joy without the spirit . It just doesn't work that way . We can have temporal joy , we can have earthy joy , and again , there's nothing that wrong with that right . But when we're really wanting to be healed , to have joy that's everlasting , we want to be leaning in and seeking the spirit . We can have joy in the harvest . We can get excited and rejoice when things go well .

Speaker 1 13:08

I encourage us to have joy for others when things go well , like in Isaiah 9 , 3, . You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy . They rejoice before you as people rejoicing at the harvest . This isn't exactly what I'm talking about from Isaiah , but I love this idea of just people rejoicing . We can have joy for each other's victories , joy for each other's wins , even moments of temptation . You know , maybe today talk to someone about one of your instant gratifications and the next time you avoid it and you persevere through it . Instead , or choose something better , like time in the word , or rest , or water , or whatever the option would be that would be better . Tell somebody , help them rejoice with you that you chose the better way .

Speaker 1 14:04

In 1 Peter 1 , 8-9 , it says Though you have not seen him , you love him and even though you do not see him now , you believe in him and you are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy , for you are receiving the end result of your faith , the salvation of your souls . I love that glorious joy that's inexpressible , and I'll end here with Romans 15 , 13 . May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him , so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit . We know it's the Holy Spirit leading us to the true joy . It's not because we're so great or because we're so obedient , because we're so wise . It's because the Holy Spirit prompts us , convicts us , works inside our spirit and shows us the places in our life where we're lacking joy .

Speaker 1 15:04

I encourage you to ask , I encourage you to seek , I encourage you to knock at the door and say Lord , where in my life am I lacking true joy ? Where am I filling it with this kind of instant gratification , temporal , earthy joy that's fleeting and not everlasting ? Show me a better way . Show me what you'd have from me , lord . So I want you just to think about that today , ladies . I want you to be in joy , thinking of joy , seeking joy , and reach out if this is something that you relate to and that you're struggling , that you're struggling to have joy . I'd love to pray with you . I'd love to talk to you about it and we can work with the spirit and see what is going on .

Speaker 1 15:48

What is it that is in your heart that's a block ? What's in your spirit that's holding you back from experiencing this true joy ? It might be like me . It was grief for me for a very long time , just kind of this cloak of darkness that I had to really work through my grief to get to the other side . It took a long time , guys , and I'm still grieving . But I have true joy that came from the Lord , that I now can acknowledge and feel . That came from the Lord that I now can acknowledge and feel . And it's not that I'm always in perfect joy . I have moments and I have fleshy temptations and I still have those instant gratification tendencies , absolutely . But I have access to the true joy and my prayer would be that I would be full of it as I go out into the world , that I can overflow it onto others as well , including my children and my family .

Speaker 1 16:44

I found this prayer poem , if you will , about joy . I wanted to close with this and just encourage you today , ladies , to be women of joy , which means we need to be women of God first , women of the spirit overflowing with joy out into the world . This poem is called my Heart's Joy . It gives my heart joy , knowing God's ways are right . It keeps me wanting to stay in the good and faithful fight . It opens up my eyes to a wonderful sight where , when in heaven , I'll be flooded in his light . It illuminates my mind and makes all things clear . Knowing Jesus , to me , will always be near . It reassures my soul . It readied a room for me , so up in heaven with him I'll always be . My heart is overly joyful . My soul is way too delighted Following God's righteous way .

Choosing Joy and Encouragement

Speaker 1 17:43

And then she notes Psalm 19 , verse 8 , which says Ladies , I hope that you can be women of joy today . Let's focus on it , let's listen for it , let's watch how creation sings it and let's encourage her while we do it . Would you join me today and be a woman who chooses to encourage ? Happy Monday , guys . I hope this message encouraged you . Please feel free to share it if it did , and I'll catch you again next Monday with another encouragement . Love to you all .