Latest / Believe & Become | Ministry, Biblical Encouragement, God's Will, How to Change, Holy Spirit / 16. Overcoming Discouragement with the Power of Biblical Joy

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16. Overcoming Discouragement with the Power of Biblical Joy · Believe & Become | Ministry, Biblical Encouragement, God's Will, How to Change, Holy Spirit

• 0:00
  Speaker A: And so I just release over you grace for Biblical optimism to see his promises and say, yes, God said it to me, it's going to happen. And maybe it doesn't happen exactly how we thought it was going to. Maybe it doesn't play out the way in our minds, but know that it's going to be good because it's from God. He's such a good Father. Welcome to Believe and Become Spirit Led Breakthrough for transformation that lasts.
• 0:31
  Speaker B: We're Josh and Corina Greegor, authors, speakers and freedom coaches who help Christians like you break free from anxiety, burnout and spiritual frustration by renewing your mind and walking in truth.
• 0:43
  Speaker A: If you're hungry for real, lasting change and ready to grow in identity, peace and purpose, you're in the right place.
• 0:51
  Speaker B: Let's believe what God says and become who he created us to be.
• 0:59
  Speaker A: Welcome back to the Believe and Become podcast. Thanks for tuning in Today. We're continuing with Part two on our discussion of joy. It's been so fun to talk about and just share our experience with that. If this has been helpful to you, please share it with a friend that needs to hear this message of joy and hope in the Lord. And if you feel stuck in a hopeless situation, if you feel like you struggle to cultivate joy in your life, reach out to us. Check out our coaching website, joshandcorina.com/coaching, the link is in the show notes. Schedule a free 25-minute consultation with us, and we can discuss what God wants to do in your life and how we could possibly partner with you to see you live in the joy that God has for you. It's his promise that you can live in joy.
• 1:50
  Speaker B: Yeah, he is full of joy. Psalm 16:11 says that in his presence is fullness of joy. God is joy. And so there's no reason that as believers we have to live with anything less than the fullness of joy in our lives.
• 2:06
  Speaker A: So good. So let's pick it up where we left off. All right. We are Talking about Psalm 37:4 Delight yourself in the Lord and He shall give you the desires of your heart. Hurt that is so powerful. That's such a good verse. As we delight ourselves as we find our delight in the Lord, not in us, not in our circumstances, not even in an achievement or getting the thing that we thought we wanted. He is our reward. Then he gives us the desires of our heart. And I think you can read that a couple ways. One is that he gives us the things that are burning in our heart that we've wanted, that we passionate about, but also he's planting those things in our hearts. So many times I've met people that are like, well, I'm really passionate about this, but that couldn't be from the Lord. That's just me. Yeah, I think that's just me. And that. That, to me, is really sad because God created us, he puts those things in our hearts. So I think it goes both ways.
• 3:02
  Speaker B: Well, and I also think that as you delight in the Lord, that requires relationship with him, and you begin to have the desires that he has for you begin to see yourself the way he sees you.
• 3:13
  Speaker A: You think like he thinks, yeah.
• 3:15
  Speaker B: And so you begin to get his desires. And so it's kind of like when Jesus says, ask anything that you will, and the Father will grant it. Right? You're like, I could literally ask for anything. But in reality, that that verse comes in this passage about abiding in John 15. And so it's like when you're abiding in him, then you begin to have his desires and then your prayers and can be trusted as things that are coming from his heart. And this is that same picture of as I delight in him, as I abide in his presence and take pleasure in him, then I filled up with his desires and he can't help but fulfill those desires. I love what Steve Backlin says about this verse. He says the delighter is delighting with unfulfilled expectations. Because as you read it, you see that this person does not yet have the desires of their heart. They don't have the things that they're hoping and wishing for and wanting, but they are still delighting in Him. And so when we have these places in our lives with unfulfilled desires, we can delight in what God will do in those places. We can say, thank you, God, for what you're going to do in this situation. Thank you for the promises that are not yet fulfilled. I can't wait to see how you're going to do that in my life. And so we can rejoice and delight in him and what he's going to do and that he's going to fulfill those desires.
• 4:39
  Speaker A: Get excited. You're like, what is God doing? What is. What promises do I have from him and say, God, I don't know how you're going to do it, but I'm sure excited to see how you work it out. For me, I think that goes back to the James 1, 2 through 4 that we talked about last time. Consider it pure joy. Mm. When we encounter various trials, because, you know, It's God working that process out in us, I think. I mean, trials could be something like. We kind of think of that as persecution, typically, but it could be. It could be. That's. That's a high calling, if you're being persecuted, to consider it pure joy. I believe that God has special grace for people in those situations. But I think it also means trials can just be the everyday. Like, am I going to choose to partner with discouragement? Am I going to choose to be bummed out about this or listen to the media? Things are going terrible in the world. You know, partnering. There's no hope for my family, for my kid, whatever it is, you can partner with that or you can say no. Actually, I choose to delight myself in the Lord. I choose to delight myself in his promises. What he has spoken to me, and I'm going to get excited that he is working it out. He who began a good work in me is faithful to complete it. And so I get excited that he's going to do it. He is going to do it. I'm going to see the goodness of God played out in my life. Absolutely surely his goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. That's Psalm 23. His goodness is chasing us down. We can't escape it. And so just get excited about what God is doing.
• 6:16
  Speaker B: And I think it's important to differentiate joy from happiness. Um, I was thinking about this as we talked last time, that it's not necessarily about just being happy all the time, because I think that when we think about a joyful person, we think of somebody smiling and bubbly and happy. But I don't necessarily think that's what this is referring to. That it might be. Yeah, that you're going to be happier when you are more full of joy. You're going to see situations differently. You're going to be more optimistic. There's going to be a difference. But it doesn't mean that you walk around smiling all the time or, you know, like Buddy the Elf. Like, smiling's my favorite. Right. Like, you're not necessarily this, like, chipper person, and you're not necessarily going to change your whole personality or your demeanor, but you will begin to see those things manifesting as you cultivate joy. Because joy is that confident expectation, right. That God is going to do something good like we've just been talking about. So if I'm confidently expecting that God is going to do something good, then my attitude about the things that are happening is different. So it doesn't mean I'm like, la la la. I'm so happy. Right? And smile, smile, smile. No, but it does mean I am confident. I am living with expectation. I can rest in peace. I can be filled with hope. So that changes the way I speak, that changes the way I interact with people, that changes the way that I respond to situations. But it doesn't necessarily mean laughing and haha all the time. I just see it almost like a quiet confidence that it would instill in someone who maybe isn't naturally bubbly. You have a quiet confidence like I know God is coming through. I don't have to worry about this, you know. And so there's just something about that joy that is our strength in that we are so confident in what God is doing.
• 8:05
  Speaker A: That was good. That's a good word. I know that. For me personally, I used to walk around with what we kind of laughingly in my family called the cloud of impending doom. I think that's from a Dilbert cartoon, which probably nobody even knows who Dilbert is. But like it's just kind of this like pessimistic outlook on life. Like things are always going to go bad. Don't get your hopes up because it's probably not going to work out. That's just kind of like how I saw life for a long time. If you read God's word, that is not what it says. He is working things out for us. And so I just release over you grace for biblical optimism to see his promises and say, yes, God said it to me, it's going to happen. And maybe it doesn't happen exactly how we thought it was going to. Maybe it doesn't play out the way in our minds, but know that it's going to be good because it's from God. He's such a good father. Yeah. So I just break off the cloud of impending doom. That pessimistic mindset God is releasing right now, his ability, his goodness, his optimistic view on life, that it's going to be good. It's going to be good. I might. We might not understand, we might not know what it's going to look like, but it was going to be good because it's from Him. Yes.
• 9:26
  Speaker B: Amen to that. Romans 14:17 says, the kingdom of God is righteousness, peace and joy. Joy is one third of the kingdom and we get to participate in that. We get to live from that place. We get to walk in the fullness of what that is as we partner with God and as we believe that what he says, he means. And he says that A merry heart is good medicine. And he says that in his presence is fullness of joy. And he says that his joy is our strength. And he says that he will give us all joy and abounding hope. And so as we partner with those truths, as we begin to declare those things over our lives, we get to live in the fullness of the joy that is in his kingdom.
• 10:11
  Speaker A: I'm convinced. I mean, there's promise after promise in the Bible of His joy that he's going to release over us. And so we just gotta change the way we think about it. You know, I think it's easy to get discouraged. You get bogged down in the mundane day to day of life. And if we're not being intentional to renew our minds with his promises of His Word. Yeah, it, it can start to get, feel like draining, you know, if we just spend a little bit of time. It doesn't even take that much to just convince yourself, yep, oh yeah, God is doing a good thing. He has fullness of joy for me, you know, just continue, renew your mind with those verses. It's, it's powerful.
• 10:54
  Speaker B: Have you heard of the negativity bias where our brains are basically looking for the negative, right? And so this really isn't about ignoring the negative, but it's about also looking for the positive or choosing to look for the positive instead. Our brains are naturally going to look for what's wrong. And it's kind of the same idea where if one person says something negative to you and maybe five people say something positive. I think it takes like 11 positive things to overcome the one negative. And so we have to re. Be really intentional to focus on the positive because you can't. I think some people, some maybe less joyful people who have not renewed their minds just yet might say, well, if I never look at the negative, right, if I don't listen to the news, then I won't know what's going on. If I never look at negative, then I'll just be ignorant, you know, walking around in some with my head in the clouds. But really you can't ignore, you just can't ignore it because your, your brain is automatically looking for it. And so it's choosing instead to focus on the positive so that you can overcome the negative really is what it comes down to. You want to redirect your thoughts so that you're seeing the good in every situation.
• 12:05
  Speaker A: I remember the first time I heard Romans 14:17, or in this context for the kingdom of God is righteousness, peace and joy. And somebody Said joy is one third of the kingdom. I said, I don't know about that. Doesn't sound right to me.
• 12:17
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 12:18
  Speaker A: Righteousness, I'm on board with. Yep. I gotta behave. I gotta.
• 12:21
  Speaker B: We know.
• 12:22
  Speaker A: Righteousness. Righteousness. I'm on board with that. That sounds right. Peace. Okay. Yeah, that's. That's probably good. I don't know that I have a lot of peace, you know. Yeah. God has peace for us. Yeah. And. But the joy part, I was like, oh, I don't know. Seems harder. Right. And I don't. I don't know why that is. I think the enemy just. That's a place where he can subtly kind of undermine us. SAP our strength out of us. Because the joy of the Lord is our strength.
• 12:49
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 12:49
  Speaker A: And so maybe, you know, righteousness, he loves to get us all stirred up in trying to perform and do everything perfectly. Certainly a lot of us have struggled with anxiety especially, you know, I feel post Covid, there's anxieties, like, through the roof, that's enemy. So he just attacks these, like, very basic premises of the kingdom of God. What. What happens when God is in charge? Righteousness, peace and joy. That's what happens.
• 13:13
  Speaker B: Well, and to even think, like, peace and joy feel like two things that we struggle so hard to get right. Like, I felt for a long time like I just didn't have peace. Peace was the hardest thing for me to find.
• 13:26
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 13:27
  Speaker B: Until I realized I already have pieces inside of me and I just have to plug into peace.
• 13:32
  Speaker A: And.
• 13:32
  Speaker B: But I think that the enemy is really strategic in these places where he attacks us with fear and anxiety and discouragement and that those peace and joy are really. They feel elusive. Right. And then with righteousness, it's really interesting because as you were talking, I was thinking righteousness, we feel like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. But the enemy TWI has twisted the. Even that to make it the rules and the laws and the expectations and it's right living. Right. And so I have to live rightly. And so even that feels like I can't even do that.
• 14:01
  Speaker A: Right.
• 14:02
  Speaker B: If I could just have a little bit of peace, God, then maybe I could think possibly that I'm part of the kingdom. But righteousness really is. I am the righteousness of Christ. I carry his righteousness. I don't have to be righteous because he is righteous for me. His righteousness has been given to me. His peace is what I already have. His joy fills me in his presence. And so this is such a beautiful recipe for a life that is really well lived and and that is just a testimony of God's goodness. I don't know how you can not be happy living in righteousness, peace and joy. We think about righteousness and we're like, oh, we have to follow the rules. And I can't watch those movies and I can't hang out with those people. I can't do. And we think about the things we can't do. But righteousness really is just about being made right with God. And I get to be made right with God. I get to live in perfect peace. I get to be strong in joy. And that is the just beyond me.
• 14:57
  Speaker A: Yeah. And joy really is so powerful. I, I, I think we under emphasize it in the church. We kind of gloss over it. Having that confident expectation that good is coming because I serve a good God that is powerful, that that will transform our lives. And I love what you said. It does feel elusive at times. Like I how do I find joy in this situation? Life is kind of hard right now. Where's my joy? But stirring it up by meditating on his word, meditating on his promises, recalling his faithfulness all throughout your life. He will do it.
• 15:32
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 15:32
  Speaker A: It's the fruit of the Spirit.
• 15:34
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 15:35
  Speaker A: He just makes it happen. All we have to do is say, okay, Holy Spirit, lead me into joy. What do I do today to live in joy? What is one step that I can take? Maybe it's just watching funny videos and laughing out loud to release that good medicine of Proverbs 17:22 over myself. Maybe I just need to laugh more. Maybe I'm just taking myself too, too seriously.
• 15:56
  Speaker B: Way too seriously.
• 15:57
  Speaker A: I mean, I know I did that for a long time. I took myself way too seriously. Just laughing at the mistakes that I made. Let's laugh at the lies of the enemy and just see the power of joy released in our lives. Yeah.
• 16:10
  Speaker B: I remember one of our teachers in ministry school saying that he knew he had to lead and he, he wanted to lead from that place of joy. And so he would lay on the ground and laugh until he felt joyful. And he would literally just lay there and like make himself laugh until he trul really felt the shift in his spirit to come into alignment with what God was wanting to do. And I think, how could we not be joyful when Jesus was covered with the oil of gladness? Jesus is the happiest person that ever walked the earth. I think that he was the most joyful, most the happiest person. People always wanted to be around him. Most people don't want to be around a Sour puss. They want to be around the person that's having fun, the person that's excited, the person that is exuding that joy and confidence. And I think if we're with Jesus, how can we not be joyful? Even in what you were just talking about, that when we abide with him, we're hanging out with him, we're abiding in his presence, we're becoming more like Him. And so how could we not be more joyful?
• 17:13
  Speaker A: Yeah. I love to just take a walk with Jesus and invite him to walk alongside me and think about what was it like for the disciples to walk with Jesus because they didn't have cars, obviously. Right. So they walked a lot. Jesus was always walking and his disciples just did life walking with Jesus. Well, I'd like to think about what were the conversations like, what were the jokes they were telling. I know. You know, Jesus had to have been a blast because of these verses. I think wasn't until relatively recently that I even clued into these verses about Jesus being anointed with the oil of gladness more than his companions. And it's. It's from Psalm 45. 7, but in case you were somehow going to just relegate that to the Old Testament. No, the writer of Hebrews brings it up in Hebrews 1:9 and quotes it, Jesus was anointed with the oil of gladness more than his companions. He was the most joyful person. So, you know, he was having fun.
• 18:15
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 18:15
  Speaker A: You know that they're having a good time, they're making jokes. And sometimes I think we just. We are too serious in our walk with God. Like every. If we're always so serious all the time, it's a check engine light. Something's not right. It's a warning to say I'm too serious all the time. If I'm not experiencing that joy, am I really in his presence? Because in his presence is fullness of joy. And I don't say that in a way to condemn. Right. Which is a way to be like God. Okay, maybe there's something I'm missing here. What? How do I partner with you to see joy manifested in my life, to have that overflowing well that just bubbles up from within side of me. Greene's got a well of joy bubbling up his stomach.
• 19:03
  Speaker B: Started gurgling as soon as he said that.
• 19:07
  Speaker A: Yeah. So I just. If you're not convinced, I mean, we haven't even scratched the surface of the verses in the Bible on Jo Joy. Yeah. If we haven't convinced, you search it out with the Lord. It's not hard. Get your Google search out and just type in Bible verses on joy. And there's a lot of them. It's a big deal to God because he wants us to have joy. Because of what Jesus did on the cross and his resurrection, how he defeated death, hell in the grave, we should have incredible joy. We just have to live out of that, understanding what he's done, our understanding of our identity in Christ, that will fill us with the joy of his presence. Yeah.
• 19:45
  Speaker B: And I love to talk about practical ways of applying these principles. And for me, I remember a time in my life where I was in the middle of a really difficult struggle, and I realized that I. I wasn't as joyful as I used to be. I realized I was really stuck in my situation. And so I. I felt like God wanted me to make a playlist of songs that were about joy, specifically about joy. So there's one reader Springer song, I want the joy of the Lord to come down. There was Israel Hooten. This was obviously a long time ago. Israel Hooten. Rejoice in the Lord always Daryl Evans. So good to me Na na na na, you know Or I'm trading my sorrows for the joy of the Lord and so I just had this playlist, and I would listen to it every day, and I would dance around and I would sing. And I began to reignite the joy that I had because I knew that God had good things for me. I just wasn't experiencing those things at the moment because of decisions that I had made. And so I had to really force myself to partner with Joy, knowing that God was gonna do something and break through. So that was one of the ways for me early on, that was before I even had this message of joy. But just early on that I was able to start to cultivate joy in my life, because for me, music is huge. I remember every word to every song. It's very important to me. But music also moves us in ways that other things don't. And so for me, I think just like laughter, when you can sing, when you can dance before the Lord, something breaks off. You have to let go of something in order to allow yourself to move your body in order to praise the Lord in ways that don't feel like how I feel right now, to let go of those feelings, and you have to engage with what he's doing. So that was something that I did to partner with joy.
• 21:37
  Speaker A: Yeah, I just got a picture of someone listening to this. Needs to go in Their closet. Shut the door and jump up and down and get excited.
• 21:48
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 21:49
  Speaker A: If you feel embarrassed or whatever, just be alone with the Lord and jump up and down and activate his joy in your life. Like sometimes it's a choice. Yeah, it's a choice. We choose every day. Am I going to partner with the heaviness? Am I going to partner with God and what he's doing and choose to move into joy? One thing that we've started doing with our family around the dinner table is just having each person say something good that happened to them that day. Because I know that we used to kind of go, okay, tell us about your day. And it was fine. You know, you kind of get the non answers or whatever, but.
• 22:27
  Speaker B: Or we would get the negative, right? Like, well, so and so said this to me or bad things, I messed up on something. Right.
• 22:34
  Speaker A: So we started and we try to make it fun and maybe a little silly, little corny, but we'll sing, I'll sing. Okay, it's time. Tell me something good. And I think that is kind of fun. And it kind of makes you laugh a little bit. And even if our boys kind of roll their eyes a little bit, they participate. Yeah, they kind of, I don't know, it kind of releases, like the laughter kind of breaks off any kind of, like, I don't know. And so we just go around and say, okay, just tell us one thing good that happened today. Because everybody can think of one good thing. Even if it was a really tough day, you can think of one small good thing that happened and then we celebrate that. And if one of our kids did really good on a project or, you know, our oldest sons are playing on worship team and it went really good. He was really excited about that. We celebrate and we clap and we say yay. And we try to get excited about it. We're trying to build a culture of joy in a family. And I think some families kind of naturally carry that. I would not say that that's naturally how we've been wired. Or maybe the pattern that we fell into after so many years. And so just choosing, okay, I'm gonna celebrate what God has done, what he's doing. And that it shifts something. It shifts the atmosphere in our home from. We just don't feel so heavy, you know, and we, we're like, actually God is doing good things every single day.
• 23:56
  Speaker B: And even it's even little things. Like recently Josh has been baking bread, you know, and so he pulls out a loaf and we're like, woohoo. Daddy made Bread. Everybody clap for him. You know, like, thank you. And we get excited about the day to day things just to say thank you, to celebrate each other, because everyone feels better when they're celebrated. When somebody claps for you or tells you a good job, we feel better. And so it's fun to celebrate each other. And we try to point out places where each other is doing a good job or succeeding in something. You know, if somebody says, like, oh, well, you know, I got a 98 on my test, you know, or I'm getting an A minus, it's like, that's okay. You're doing great, great job. You're getting an A. We're so proud of you. Doesn't matter if it's A minus. We just try to celebrate every place where each other is succeeding. And I think that's really important instead of always just pointing out the flaws or the failures. So these are just some practical ways that you can think about maybe incorporating just one into your day. Whether that is dancing before the Lord because you love music and you love to dance, or whether that is celebrating the people in your life and being joyful with others. Take one of these things and just give it a try. Give it a week. See if it helps.
• 25:11
  Speaker A: Yeah, I love keeping a gratitude journal. I think that, you know, writing is really powerful for rewiring our brains and the way that we see life. And so that's something that I've done throughout my life. Different times, especially when it felt heavy. That was a really powerful tool just to say, okay, today I'm going to write down three things that I'm thankful for. And I remember it, you know, when I first started, it was such a struggle. I couldn't even think of one thing to be thankful for. I mean, now that's just crazy, right? But I remember it just being such a struggle. And then I was like, okay, God, help me to think of something. And he would give me things. I say, oh, well, I actually have a lot to be grateful for. And so read through those. Do three a day, and then every day read those first three, read the next three that you've written down. Just go over it every single day. That shifts the way that you're viewing life from God's not doing anything or everything is terrible to like, actually I have a lot of really good things happening, happening in my life. And that gratitude is powerful. That changes us.
• 26:11
  Speaker B: Yeah. And it's actually, if you did that every day for a year, you have a thousand things to be thankful for. Ann Voskamp She's a Bible study writer and teacher. She wrote a book called 1000 gifts and she has a gratitude journal that goes along with it. And it's just a year of guided gratitude. And I think that's so valuable. And she actually came through, I think, a cancer journey. Like she overcame cancer just by cultivating gratitude. And so it's so powerful. It really is good medicine. The joy of the Lord and Thanksgiving and just remembering to rejoice in him and what he's done. It's so powerful.
• 26:49
  Speaker A: Yeah. So if you feel like you're struggling to cultivate joy in your life and that's something that you want to see breakthrough in, we have a coaching program that we love to invite you to come have a free 25 minute session with us. Let's talk about how we can help you cultivate that. That's something that we love to do with our clients. We love to provide accountability sometimes. Okay. I have all these great ideas of things that I want to do, I need to do in my life to see transformation. I'm just having trouble doing it every day. So we love to provide accountability for our clients. We'll sit down with you and make a plan. What does it look like to cultivate joy in my life? What lies am I believing that I need to renew my mind with the truth? Yeah. To defeat those and to have victory in my life. We love we so excited when you see the transformation process, when it starts to work, might take a few weeks. It's usually about week four. People are like, it's working. It's crazy. It's working. Things are coming out of me that are truth, that are hopeful, that I've never said before. It's like, where did that come from? So we would love to just chat with you and come up with a strategy for how we can help you do that. So check that out. The link is in the show notes. It's joshandcorina.com/coaching and we're just so thankful for the time that you've spent with us. We just release a huge, huge bucket of grace over you to step into the joy of the Lord and see that played out in your life every single day and just let it increase. I feel like, I mean, the joy the Lord does, there's no limit to his joy. It can just increase every single day. You can abound in hope and joy. So we just bless you with that. Thanks for spending time with us and we'll talk to you in the next episode.