Latest / Coffee and Bible Time Podcast / Joy Is More Than A Feeling: Here's Why | Chip Ingram

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Joy Is More Than A Feeling: Here's Why | Chip Ingram · Coffee and Bible Time Podcast

• 1:01
  Ellen Krause: At the Coffee and Bible Time podcast.
• 1:03
  Ellen Krause: Our goal is to help you delight in God's Word and thrive in Christian living.
• 1:07
  Ellen Krause: Each week we talk to subject matter experts who broaden your biblical understanding, encourage you in hard times and provide life-building tips to enhance your Christian walk.
• 1:18
  Ellen Krause: We are so glad you have joined us.
• 1:21
  Ellen Krause: Welcome back to the Coffee and Bible Time podcast.
• 1:28
  Ellen Krause: I'm Ellen, your host, and I'm so glad that you have joined us today.
• 1:33
  Ellen Krause: If joy feels a little out of reach lately, you're not alone.
• 1:37
  Ellen Krause: In a world that feels increasingly chaotic, discouraging or just plain exhausting, joy might feel more like a luxury than a hallmark of the Holy Spirit.
• 1:49
  Ellen Krause: But what if joy isn't just a feeling?
• 1:53
  Ellen Krause: What if it's something deeper, something stronger than our circumstances?
• 1:58
  Ellen Krause: Well, today we are joined by Chip Ingram, the teaching pastor and CEO of Living on the Edge, an international teaching and discipleship ministry.
• 2:09
  Ellen Krause: Chip is a longtime pastor, the author of several books, including Holy Ambition and the Invisible War, and a passionate Bible teacher who spent decades helping people follow Jesus authentically.
• 2:23
  Ellen Krause: He and his wife Teresa live in California and have four grown children and 12 grandchildren, and in this conversation we're going to discuss how Philippians 1 and the life of the Apostle Paul teach us how to experience authentic joy even when our circumstances make it feel impossible.
• 2:45
  Ellen Krause: So if you've ever wondered how to hold on when life gets hard, you're going to be encouraged by what Chip has to teach us.
• 2:53
  Ellen Krause: So, without further ado, welcome Chip.
• 2:56
  Chip Ingram: Thank you, Ellen.
• 2:57
  Chip Ingram: Great to be with you and your daughter.
• 2:59
  Ellen Krause: I just love hearing the sound of your voice and now getting to see you in person.
• 3:03
  Ellen Krause: It's so exciting for me because I've listened to you on Moody Radio for years, so thank you for your ministry there.
• 3:10
  Chip Ingram: We're thrilled to get to do it.
• 3:12
  Chip Ingram: Moody's been a really great partner.
• 3:14
  Chip Ingram: We have deep and long ties to the school and many of the presidents and just how it's been a beacon of light in the midst of a crazy world for well over a century.
• 3:26
  Ellen Krause: Absolutely Well.
• 3:28
  Ellen Krause: Why don't you start out by telling us a little bit about why you decided to approach this topic of joy now?
• 3:36
  Ellen Krause: Was there a specific life experience that prompted you?
• 3:41
  Chip Ingram: Yes, you know, it's one of those where sometimes you get a great idea and you think, oh Lord's given you something, so please show me what to do.
• 3:49
  Chip Ingram: And then other times you find yourself writing out of your own personal need, and this is one of those.
• 3:55
  Chip Ingram: About seven years ago maybe almost eight now I had a really difficult pain in terms of my back.
• 4:04
  Chip Ingram: I had discs that were bad, my back was bent, stenosis, all kind of different things.
• 4:12
  Chip Ingram: So two years of every treatment under the sun, followed by a major surgery, infusion, followed by a couple hard years, yet another surgery, when all that broke loose.
• 4:21
  Chip Ingram: And you know it was just.
• 4:23
  Chip Ingram: You know I continued to work and but I was on ice packs and every treatment under the world and couldn't sit, couldn't stand.
• 4:29
  Chip Ingram: Every surgery was a long, major rehab and taking little steps in the backyard and praying.
• 4:36
  Chip Ingram: And I came in one day after doing that and of course, you know my wife bore a lot of that burden for a long time and I remember sitting down on the hearth and she looked at me and she said, chip, I don't want to hurt your feelings, but I feel like I need to share something with you.
• 4:52
  Chip Ingram: And I said, well, what's that she goes well.
• 4:55
  Chip Ingram: You know I really appreciate your persevering and all the rest, but I married a really positive, upbeat, future-oriented person and you've really lost your joy.
• 5:06
  Chip Ingram: Do you realize how it's very subtle, how negative you become, and I thought my initial godly reaction was no way, that's not me.
• 5:18
  Chip Ingram: I didn't say anything, though After 46 years of marriage, you learn not to say the first thing, and you know I had a little time to think about it and I realized, yeah, because of pain, those people that had chronic pain, your patients, get smaller.
• 5:33
  Chip Ingram: The glass is more half full, and little by little, I realized I did, and so I was to speak at the Billy Graham Conference Center in about two months, and the topic was Philippians, chapter one, and so I studied it in depth and it was like God just ringing and saying Chip, look look at Paul's circumstances.
• 5:52
  Chip Ingram: He's in prison.
• 5:53
  Chip Ingram: He's writing a thank you note because they sent some food and some financial resources through one of the church members, epaphroditus, and he wants to thank them.
• 6:03
  Chip Ingram: And look, his opening is he prays for them with joy and his focus is upward, and then he's chained between these two guards and you know, I've seen a picture of the prison.
• 6:13
  Chip Ingram: They would drop you down in a hole and it was dark and I mean just horrendous.
• 6:18
  Chip Ingram: If you didn't have a friend to bring you food you didn't eat.
• 6:19
  Chip Ingram: I mean just horrendous.
• 6:20
  Chip Ingram: And if you didn't have a friend to bring you food you didn't eat.
• 6:21
  Chip Ingram: I mean it wasn't like they serve meals.
• 6:23
  Chip Ingram: When we read prison we think a little bit of how we see it.
• 6:27
  Chip Ingram: And I thought he said I thank God that my circumstances have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel.
• 6:34
  Chip Ingram: And so as I went through the chapter and I taught it and then I pulled out some very practical things that I wrote on little cards and Ellen, this isn't a silver bullet like hey, read the book, I choose joy and things will be great.
• 6:49
  Chip Ingram: But it will, I think, help people understand first that we don't have to wait for joy to come our way, but also you can go into training and we really can allow ourselves to look at life through God's perspective and in the midst of our hardest, deepest times, my testimony is that I've been able to choose joy and the response to that weekend and the response to it airing on the broadcast, it was like people with anxiety and depression and struggles and young people and suicide.
• 7:20
  Chip Ingram: It just seemed like you know, lord, I better, I better get this in a format that more people can get.
• 7:26
  Chip Ingram: So it grew out of my own lack of joy.
• 7:29
  Ellen Krause: If you will, and God speaking to me, and it's incredible that you know God allowed you to have that experience and so that now he is using it for the good of so many others.
• 7:44
  Ellen Krause: And you know you touched on there that there are people listening who are going through some horrific circumstances now, and I'm just thinking of like the flooding in Texas.
• 7:56
  Ellen Krause: Tell us about how.
• 7:58
  Ellen Krause: Do you think joy is just still something that is important, even when it seems impossible?
• 8:06
  Chip Ingram: or someone's sick and you pray and they get better, or you have a wonderful dinner with your family.
• 8:24
  Chip Ingram: I mean, there's lots of things, events that make us happy, but the word happy comes from happenings.
• 8:30
  Chip Ingram: Happiness is tied mostly to events and joy is a sustaining byproduct of your connection with Jesus that, supernaturally inside of you, allows you, in the midst of darkness, difficulty, pain, disappointment, betrayal, to be buoyed up inside in a way that no one can rob it from you, and it's a fruit of the Spirit.
• 8:54
  Chip Ingram: It's something the Spirit of God produces.
• 8:57
  Chip Ingram: You know, this fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, etc.
• 9:02
  Chip Ingram: And I love CS Lewis.
• 9:06
  Chip Ingram: You know such an influential writer.
• 9:08
  Chip Ingram: One of his quotes he says joy is the serious business of heaven, and that's what I would want believers to hear.
• 9:16
  Chip Ingram: This isn't like oh, this is okay.
• 9:19
  Chip Ingram: In Nehemiah, you know, god's agenda was pretty much completely dissipated.
• 9:24
  Chip Ingram: He went back to rebuild a wall.
• 9:26
  Chip Ingram: Other leaders had gone back 80 years before.
• 9:28
  Chip Ingram: Finally they build the actual wall.
• 9:31
  Chip Ingram: But then he has to rebuild the focus on God and the people walking with God again.
• 9:36
  Chip Ingram: I mean, it was a complete turnaround and as they read the scriptures, the people just wept because they saw how far away from God.
• 9:44
  Chip Ingram: They drifted and it happened to be a day of festival.
• 9:47
  Chip Ingram: And so he says no, we're going to repent, we're going to go through the process.
• 9:53
  Chip Ingram: But here's what we need.
• 9:55
  Chip Ingram: We need strength to make it through.
• 9:57
  Chip Ingram: The joy of the Lord is your strength, and he had them.
• 10:00
  Chip Ingram: Rejoice in who God was and rejoice that his forgiveness is available.
• 10:03
  Chip Ingram: And I think that has been a big lesson for me is that joy isn't like it would be nice.
• 10:10
  Chip Ingram: Joy is always available and there is a way to think and process and pray where, in the worst of circumstances, god promises If you get a command right, rejoice always.
• 10:24
  Chip Ingram: That's not a suggestion.
• 10:26
  Chip Ingram: And again I say rejoice.
• 10:27
  Chip Ingram: Let your gentleness or forbearance be evident to everyone.
• 10:31
  Chip Ingram: The Lord is near Someone.
• 10:33
  Chip Ingram: One theologian said that if love was the community of the early church, joy was their business card.
• 10:39
  Chip Ingram: It was.
• 10:40
  Chip Ingram: You just saw this joy in the midst and I think we have a great opportunity.
• 10:44
  Chip Ingram: And it doesn't mean we're up all the time.
• 10:48
  Chip Ingram: This isn't glad handing.
• 10:49
  Chip Ingram: This is not self-help.
• 10:51
  Chip Ingram: Positive thinking, this is the spirit of God in the context of community and God's word, allowing us to see through a perspective, allows us to have great joy.
• 11:05
  Ellen Krause: Absolutely, and I know that I've seen that joy in others and it really is, I think, contagious to the standpoint that you want to experience that yourself.
• 11:18
  Ellen Krause: And I think when you see people going through these tremendous difficulties and having that, you know that it has to be supernatural.
• 11:26
  Ellen Krause: Would you say that joy is more of a discipline or a gift, and where do our emotions fit in with the experience of joy?
• 11:36
  Chip Ingram: Well, that is a really great question because I think those things you know, they so overlap in so many ways.
• 11:43
  Chip Ingram: It does require some discipline and our emotions are definitely involved, but I can't.
• 11:51
  Chip Ingram: I can't wait for my emotions to get to a place before I do what I know God wants me to do.
• 11:56
  Chip Ingram: And one of the things you know.
• 11:59
  Chip Ingram: There's four key paragraphs in chapter one and as I studied that, I'm going to answer your question like this, because as I studied it, as Paul prayed, I saw, wow, his focus was upward, praising and thanking God, and his focus was outward, in his terrible situation.
• 12:19
  Chip Ingram: He's praying that their love would grow and increase.
• 12:23
  Chip Ingram: Second, what I noticed was in his own circumstances.
• 12:26
  Chip Ingram: He looked through the lens of purpose and it was like what's God's purpose in this?
• 12:30
  Chip Ingram: So he found joy, not that he was chained between two guards and it was terrible.
• 12:33
  Chip Ingram: I mean, he was real.
• 12:35
  Chip Ingram: He's getting up and going.
• 12:37
  Chip Ingram: Here's another day.
• 12:38
  Chip Ingram: This is going to be really rough.
• 12:39
  Chip Ingram: I'm chained to guys.
• 12:41
  Chip Ingram: I wonder if I'm going to get anything to eat.
• 12:42
  Chip Ingram: It's dark, it's damp, there's rats.
• 12:44
  Chip Ingram: Nevertheless, that's that.
• 12:47
  Chip Ingram: And he looked at it through that lens and then, a little bit later, he's not sure whether he's going to live or die.
• 12:51
  Chip Ingram: And he looks at life through the lens of hope.
• 12:54
  Chip Ingram: And if he looked at his current situation, hope was pretty dim, possibly executed.
• 13:01
  Chip Ingram: But he looked at it through eternal perspective.
• 13:03
  Chip Ingram: And so that perspective was for me to live as Christ, to die as gain.
• 13:08
  Chip Ingram: And then maybe one of the most powerful parts of the book for me was at the very end, and he's encouraging this church.
• 13:16
  Chip Ingram: It's a young church and they got the same kind of external persecution and it's a little disunity going on between a couple of ladies and factions.
• 13:23
  Chip Ingram: And he tells them it's been granted to you not only to believe in him but also to suffer for his sake, experiencing the same conflict which you've heard to be and seen to be in me.
• 13:34
  Chip Ingram: And I think he looked at it through a perspective of God's expectations.
• 13:39
  Chip Ingram: God does miracles, he's powerful, and he also says in the world you'll have tribulation.
• 13:45
  Chip Ingram: And so those four things, I came up with a question for each one.
• 13:49
  Chip Ingram: And then, if you don't mind, my dad was a math teacher, I loved algebra, and so when I looked at the entire chapter, an algebraic formula came up.
• 13:59
  Chip Ingram: A algebraic formula came up and it's the letter C for circumstances plus the letter P for perspective equals sign your experience.
• 14:08
  Chip Ingram: And so what I find is our circumstances.
• 14:10
  Chip Ingram: We have very little control of.
• 14:12
  Chip Ingram: I mean, whether it rains, whether it doesn't rain, the stock market up down, tariffs who's president, who's not?
• 14:18
  Chip Ingram: We're bombarded by circumstances.
• 14:20
  Chip Ingram: We can't control tariffs.
• 14:22
  Chip Ingram: Who's president, who's not?
• 14:23
  Chip Ingram: We're bombarded by circumstances we can't control.
• 14:24
  Chip Ingram: If our focus, our perspective, is through those, we will have a life of ups and downs and dips and valleys.
• 14:29
  Chip Ingram: But our circumstances plus our perspective, if we can, in the midst of our challenges, say where's my focus right now?
• 14:36
  Chip Ingram: Is it upward and outward or is it inward?
• 14:40
  Chip Ingram: And what's my purpose, what's God's agenda in this versus what I really want.
• 14:46
  Chip Ingram: And so I ended up writing on four little cards what's my focus, what's my purpose, where's my hope and what are my expectations.
• 14:56
  Chip Ingram: And then I begin to read those things over out of Philippians 1.
• 15:01
  Chip Ingram: And I put those in the book in a way where, just for me, it's just us ordinary Christians going into training where we, you, can actually train your mind.
• 15:12
  Chip Ingram: It takes a few weeks and you practice for a few months.
• 15:15
  Chip Ingram: I've been doing this, for you know, years and years and years, to where, yes, your initial is oh, why did that happen.
• 15:22
  Chip Ingram: And the Spirit of God, chip, where's your focus?
• 15:26
  Chip Ingram: Okay, lord, I don't like this.
• 15:28
  Chip Ingram: It's painful right now.
• 15:29
  Chip Ingram: I thank you that you're in control.
• 15:31
  Chip Ingram: I thank you're going to use it and then shift your focus and begin to say other people are going through some worse things.
• 15:38
  Chip Ingram: How do I help them?
• 15:39
  Chip Ingram: It's an amazing thing to me.
• 15:43
  Chip Ingram: I don't feel like it and I can feel really low and down and I can choose.
• 15:49
  Chip Ingram: I choose to pray when I don't feel like praying, when I get really discouraged or even depressed.
• 15:54
  Chip Ingram: I have sort of a three-part practical strategy.
• 15:57
  Chip Ingram: Number one I go and get as hard a workout as I can so I get sweaty, because God gives us biology.
• 16:04
  Chip Ingram: Those endorphins are antidepressants.
• 16:06
  Chip Ingram: Number two I find a place where no one is, because I'm discouraged, I don't want to pray, and I sing as loud as I can Praises to God.
• 16:15
  Chip Ingram: Lord, I don't really want to do this right now, but you are the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.
• 16:19
  Chip Ingram: Blessed be the name of the Lord.
• 16:20
  Chip Ingram: And my son's a songwriter, so I sing a lot of his songs and I just worship the Lord and in this process, first my body is kind of like I don't want to wear out, I don't feel like it.
• 16:32
  Chip Ingram: Why is this happening to me?
• 16:33
  Chip Ingram: I'm moaning and whining in my mind all that, and then step three is okay, lord, I need an action, step Someone or something that's hurting more than me right now.
• 16:49
  Chip Ingram: Today, I'm going to help them.
• 16:51
  Chip Ingram: It is amazing how your emotions change because your perspective changes and you feel this energy well up inside of you and this hope that gets to be birthed, and there's this joy.
• 17:04
  Chip Ingram: And is it a battle?
• 17:05
  Chip Ingram: Yes, does it require discipline?
• 17:07
  Chip Ingram: Yes, do I do it 100% of the time?
• 17:10
  Chip Ingram: No, you know.
• 17:12
  Chip Ingram: Paul says walk in a manner worthy.
• 17:15
  Chip Ingram: Well, a walk is baby steps, and if you see a baby, they walk three or four steps and when they're learning, they fall.
• 17:21
  Chip Ingram: Well, parents don't get up right now, they're thrilled with the three steps, and our Heavenly Father is so patient with us.
• 17:29
  Chip Ingram: So, as you learn consistently to get the right perspective, you experience great joy.
• 17:36
  Ellen Krause: I love in the book how you recommended writing that down on the card because I made a note for myself the C plus P plus E, and just I want to remember that living above my circumstances, you said, occurs when my perspective interprets my circumstances rather than my circumstances determining my perspective, and that's really powerful.
• 18:04
  Ellen Krause: I think one of the things that I found so interesting with this passage in Paul is that during those most difficult times that he was having there, like you just described, that the letters that he went on to write have now encouraged and convicted thousands or millions of millions of people across the generations.
• 18:28
  Ellen Krause: You kind of wish Paul knew that he would have such an impact.
• 18:33
  Ellen Krause: But what would you say overall?
• 18:35
  Ellen Krause: What do you think we can learn from Paul's perseverance and faithfulness in the worst of circumstances?
• 18:44
  Chip Ingram: I would say both from scripture and even history, let alone church history.
• 18:48
  Chip Ingram: Probably the greatest people that are the most loving and the greatest impact are people that have been through extraordinary suffering and some people run from God during that and blame him and others lean in and he's able to do something in us through that and confession.
• 19:07
  Chip Ingram: I hope it's okay.
• 19:08
  Chip Ingram: The COVID it was early on and in California it was a level of shutdown like no other place.
• 19:16
  Chip Ingram: They were like if you walk outside you have to have a mask on by yourself.
• 19:20
  Chip Ingram: I mean, it was crazy.
• 19:21
  Chip Ingram: I couldn't see my kids, my grandkids, and so I got discouraged and then I had about two or three days.
• 19:27
  Chip Ingram: I get depressed and I'm kind of up person in general, and when I get depressed I don't have a mild one.
• 19:32
  Chip Ingram: I was really dark and it was just.
• 19:34
  Chip Ingram: I knew I was in a spiritual battle and so I went out and, you know, got on the treadmill and I got real sweaty and I took a long walk and, you know, praise God and I feel a little better.
• 19:46
  Chip Ingram: And then I walked in the house and on the television was the news was depicting what was happening in Egypt during COVID.
• 19:53
  Chip Ingram: The early.
• 19:53
  Chip Ingram: This was like June, july, when it first started, and you know body bags and desperate, and the head of all the Protestant churches has become a good friend.
• 20:03
  Chip Ingram: We've trained the Protestant pastors throughout all of Egypt and so I said, okay, I was.
• 20:08
  Chip Ingram: Who's hurting more than me?
• 20:09
  Chip Ingram: Dr Zaki and all the pastors there.
• 20:11
  Chip Ingram: So I had a Zoom call the next day.
• 20:13
  Chip Ingram: We have a conversation.
• 20:15
  Chip Ingram: He goes, I and my family are OK, but we're barely surviving a chance.
• 20:21
  Chip Ingram: I mean completely unplanned.
• 20:23
  Chip Ingram: He didn't know.
• 20:24
  Chip Ingram: The only reason I reached out to you is because you're hurting worse than me and I'm stuck and can't get out of it.
• 20:30
  Chip Ingram: So everything that's going to happen from this point on is not great leadership, some big strategy.
• 20:36
  Chip Ingram: It's a hurting person just trying to obey and in my weakness, god, would you help this person?
• 20:43
  Chip Ingram: So he says, oh, send me that series.
• 20:46
  Chip Ingram: I said no, dr Zaki, I'm thinking about a series, because as I saw COVID, I thought what would the Lord say to the world right now If someone said, chip, you've got three weeks or five weeks or two, whatever.
• 20:58
  Chip Ingram: What is God's word to the early months of COVID?
• 21:01
  Chip Ingram: And I thought to myself you know, not a lot different from the very first book of the early church Jews are running for their lives, persecution has come.
• 21:11
  Chip Ingram: And James, the half-brother of Jesus it's the very first book in the New Testament to these Jewish Christians that are spread and he gives them a three-part the art of survival.
• 21:22
  Chip Ingram: The A is there's an attitude Consider it all.
• 21:24
  Chip Ingram: Joy.
• 21:24
  Chip Ingram: In the midst of this, god's going to work in you, then through you, and then there's a resource wisdom, there's supernatural wisdom, which is what to do, when to do it, how to do it, if you're willing to do whatever God says, which is a challenge.
• 21:37
  Chip Ingram: And then the last part of that, in the first 12 verses, is there's a theology about life and perspective that allows you to overcome discouragement and see yourself from God's perspective.
• 21:49
  Chip Ingram: And that was on a Thursday and I went from being depressed to making a couple of phone calls.
• 21:54
  Chip Ingram: By Monday I had a guy with two cameras.
• 21:56
  Chip Ingram: I took a PVC pipe and put a sheet that looked like bricks on it as a background and I studied all weekend.
• 22:03
  Chip Ingram: I taught it, but never like this Did three messages sent them.
• 22:09
  Chip Ingram: By Friday they were in Egypt.
• 22:11
  Chip Ingram: By the next Friday they were dubbed the following I think Tuesday or so every pastor in Egypt it was.
• 22:18
  Chip Ingram: You know these Zooms.
• 22:19
  Chip Ingram: I mean I had pages and pages and pages.
• 22:21
  Chip Ingram: And Dr Zaki says look, we're hurting, share it all Hour and a half.
• 22:26
  Chip Ingram: Then I did an hour and a half of Q&A and I heard, I mean people ask me, chip, why did God let my wife die?
• 22:33
  Chip Ingram: And it was just crushing.
• 22:36
  Chip Ingram: And our head of international was with me and we got off of it and he said, chip, I don't think that series that you developed was just for Egypt, and he had worked with Billy Graham for 10 years and he worked with Luis Palau for 13.
• 22:50
  Chip Ingram: So he was connected all over the world.
• 22:52
  Chip Ingram: And the next week I found myself with 700 pastors from 300 cities in India, and I won't go into it all, but it was for the next 25 months, morning and evening.
• 23:04
  Chip Ingram: Everyone offered it Right now media, every organization, worship pastors, morning and night.
• 23:10
  Chip Ingram: We would just encourage tens of thousands of pastors.
• 23:13
  Chip Ingram: And then that little booklet went into about 32 different languages.
• 23:18
  Chip Ingram: And then, near the end of COVID, we went to them and we spent a day and we do session one, and then let them get in groups of maybe four and they cried and they wept as pastors India, africa, latin America, southeast Asia.
• 23:35
  Chip Ingram: And I look back and I think I was down and discouraged because my circumstances were bad.
• 23:43
  Chip Ingram: I was angry, I was frustrated and God used my weakness, my struggle and a small baby step in all the ministry I've ever been in.
• 23:58
  Chip Ingram: I think.
• 23:58
  Chip Ingram: One of our international team members told me we've trained 339,000 or 400,000 pastors in live events in the last three and a half years.
• 24:10
  Chip Ingram: That all grew out of that moment in COVID, and so I would just want to say to people ask God, lord, okay, I don't like what I'm going through with my mate.
• 24:20
  Chip Ingram: I'm so worried about one of my children.
• 24:21
  Chip Ingram: I'm depressed.
• 24:22
  Chip Ingram: I've got a health issue'm going through with my mate.
• 24:24
  Chip Ingram: I'm so worried about one of my children.
• 24:26
  Chip Ingram: I'm depressed.
• 24:28
  Chip Ingram: I've got a health issue that doesn't seem to change.
• 24:30
  Chip Ingram: We've had a split in our church.
• 24:32
  Chip Ingram: I'm so mad at so-and-so.
• 24:35
  Chip Ingram: Ask the question where's my focus?
• 24:37
  Chip Ingram: And then God, what's your purpose?
• 24:39
  Chip Ingram: How could you use these circumstances?
• 24:41
  Chip Ingram: That perspective changed my life and it changed the trajectory of everything I did up to the first 40 some years of ministry.
• 24:54
  Chip Ingram: Joy is the serious business of heaven, as I've seen this happen.
• 24:58
  Chip Ingram: I mean now we've got nationals in India and Dubai and Egypt and Latin America.
• 25:06
  Chip Ingram: None of these people I even knew.
• 25:08
  Chip Ingram: Now they're all on our team and I track and I hear what God is doing in these rural villages in Nepal and think, humanly speaking, that happened because a pretty immature pastor named Chip got discouraged.
• 25:22
  Chip Ingram: Then he lost perspective and got really depressed and then he chose to take a baby step toward the light.
• 25:29
  Chip Ingram: And God said I wanted you to be positioned and, as we've all celebrated these last five, six years, there is zero credit to be taken by anyone.
• 25:42
  Chip Ingram: I mean, it's not like well, what was your strategy?
• 25:45
  Chip Ingram: Didn't have one, how did you think it was work?
• 25:47
  Chip Ingram: Had no idea.
• 25:48
  Chip Ingram: What did you do?
• 25:49
  Chip Ingram: We followed the light.
• 25:50
  Chip Ingram: We just kept taking the next baby steps.
• 25:53
  Chip Ingram: I just really want to encourage those listening.
• 25:56
  Chip Ingram: God has great and wonderful and supernatural purposes and you can choose to enter in and wonderful and supernatural purposes and you can choose to enter in and some of the things that you all talk about.
• 26:08
  Chip Ingram: Why our hearts connect is but you have to be in God's word so you can hear his voice and you have to be in community and sharing.
• 26:14
  Chip Ingram: I was able to say I made a phone call when it was dark.
• 26:18
  Chip Ingram: I still remember we were dropping the dog off or something and my wife went in to the vet and I called a mentor.
• 26:26
  Chip Ingram: He's 90.
• 26:27
  Chip Ingram: He has been with me since I was 28.
• 26:30
  Chip Ingram: And I said I said, ac, I'm in a dark spot and thoughts are going through my mind that I'm there.
• 26:37
  Chip Ingram: I mean I can't believe I'm even thinking of them.
• 26:39
  Chip Ingram: I have to get them out, would you?
• 26:42
  Chip Ingram: Would you listen?
• 26:42
  Chip Ingram: And he's known me since he knows all my kids.
• 26:45
  Chip Ingram: And I said, gosh, I mean like, don't be a pastor anymore, your life is away.
• 26:51
  Chip Ingram: I mean there were lies, but they kept going around and around in my head and I couldn't get rid of them and I prayed and I fasted and I just laid that out for him and he listened, encouraged me.
• 26:59
  Chip Ingram: I just laid that out for him and he listened, encouraged me.
• 27:03
  Chip Ingram: He called me or texted me every single day, probably for the next 20 days.
• 27:07
  Chip Ingram: How are you doing today?
• 27:09
  Chip Ingram: Prayed for you.
• 27:10
  Chip Ingram: Today we need people and God restored my joy and God worked in my heart.
• 27:18
  Chip Ingram: But we go through some dark times that feel like that's the key.
• 27:20
  Chip Ingram: They feel like they'll never change.
• 27:22
  Chip Ingram: We don't have to wait for circumstances to change.
• 27:25
  Chip Ingram: We can choose joy in the midst of them.
• 27:27
  Chip Ingram: So that's my heart for this book.
• 27:31
  Ellen Krause: That's so powerful.
• 27:32
  Ellen Krause: I just made a little note because I want to put it on my board.
• 27:36
  Ellen Krause: God can use our baby steps and, like you said, when we're in these low, low, seemingly in states where we feel like it's hopeless, yes, if we can just allow ourselves that one baby step, I think of a couple at our church who they had ended up turning it like into a little skit that was done at the front of our church and about a relationship this couple had developed with this man and later you come to learn that it was the man who was the drunk driver that hit and killed their son.
• 28:17
  Ellen Krause: Wow, and you don't know that until the very end, but you can see how.
• 28:23
  Ellen Krause: That's the joy we're talking about.
• 28:26
  Ellen Krause: They saw that God had a bigger purpose, a bigger plan, things that we can't possibly understand, and has really impacted me as well.
• 28:41
  Ellen Krause: And it's exciting to hear the impact of this ministry of yours has just gone all around the world, because clearly everyone, all around the world, we're all God's people and they need to hear this message as well.
• 28:54
  Ellen Krause: Well, chip, as we start to wrap things up here, I know you've shared this message at various conferences and broadcasts, and could you share maybe one story that someone about how this truth has impacted their life?
• 29:13
  Chip Ingram: Yes, I get a lot of letters and a lot of emails and I got a few just in the last few days, you know, a lady saying I was really discouraged and we've had ongoing marriage problems and in my mind I've blamed my husband because he's not doing this, he's not doing that and I just keep feeding off the negative.
• 29:33
  Chip Ingram: And I heard this series and I began to think about what are my choices and how am I thinking and what's God's purpose in it and where is my hope?
• 29:44
  Chip Ingram: Is my hope that I had this perfect marriage or is my hope that I can't have any joy in my life until quote my husband changes?
• 29:51
  Chip Ingram: And you know what are my expectations.
• 29:54
  Chip Ingram: You know, and as she went through that, she said just thank you so much, for I knew what she meant.
• 30:01
  Chip Ingram: It wasn't me, but for saving my life and saving my marriage.
• 30:04
  Chip Ingram: She says it didn't happen overnight, but it was me beginning to recognize where my thinking was and one of the things you know, I'm certain in this book, but especially in some other things, like the good friend Kyle Eidelman wrote a book called Taking Every Thought Captive.
• 30:28
  Chip Ingram: He and I are good friends.
• 30:29
  Chip Ingram: He's a pastor in Kentucky and one of the things I was just going to mention is, as you change your focus, you have to change your inputs, and so a steady diet of news, an addiction to our phone we all kind of talk about it as though, yeah, it's really not good, we really shouldn't do it.
• 30:48
  Chip Ingram: And then everyone keeps doing it and I really just tell people you are the product of your thought life.
• 30:54
  Chip Ingram: If you want to have joy, I would say, as one mentor told me, invest your mind on things that are timeless and then spend a little bit of time on things that are timely, because they always change.
• 31:06
  Chip Ingram: You don't want to make big decisions or make big convictions about what's timely.
• 31:12
  Chip Ingram: You want to base your life on what's timeless.
• 31:16
  Chip Ingram: I've been in these conversations, ellen.
• 31:18
  Chip Ingram: It's like well, chip, thanks, I really understand.
• 31:20
  Chip Ingram: I'm glad for you.
• 31:22
  Chip Ingram: I don't really read the Bible that much and you know I'm glad you know pastors and people like you, and this isn't for people like me, this is for all of us, ordinary.
• 31:33
  Chip Ingram: I feel like I'm a very ordinary Christian who was discipled by a bricklayer with a high school education and his life propelled me to discover I had some gifts and become a pastor, and I'm glad for seminary and languages and theology, but to this day, if I could trade my time with a bricklayer.
• 31:58
  Chip Ingram: Over all the time, and all the studies and all the mentors he taught me to meet with God every day.
• 32:04
  Chip Ingram: He taught me how to study the Bible for myself.
• 32:08
  Chip Ingram: So I heard God speak to me.
• 32:10
  Chip Ingram: That has been the most important and the most sustaining thing of my whole life.
• 32:26
  Chip Ingram: I think a lot of the challenges of our brothers and sisters is that basic aligning your life with scripture, meeting with Jesus to get to know him, not so we can get him to make our lives work out the way we want to.
• 32:32
  Chip Ingram: My dream in my life is to help Christians live like Christians, because when I grew up, I attended a church that didn't believe the Bible and they said one thing and lived another way, and I rejected God, the Bible, everything.
• 32:44
  Chip Ingram: And when I met some Christians that lived like Christians, they weren't perfect, but they were real, they were passionate, they were honest and it was like I saw Jesus.
• 32:54
  Chip Ingram: And so that's my heart for those listening to us, that we have a kind, loving, just and holy God that longs for our lives to flourish, and he's laid out.
• 33:05
  Chip Ingram: This is how it works, and I think, as G K Chesterton once said it's not that the Christian life has been tried and it's not workable.
• 33:12
  Chip Ingram: It's rarely even been tried among most Christians.
• 33:16
  Chip Ingram: So that's our heart's desire.
• 33:20
  Ellen Krause: Thank you so much, Chip.
• 33:21
  Ellen Krause: Your insight has really impacted my heart and we've just scratched the surface of what's in your book, which is even more incredible content.
• 33:30
  Ellen Krause: Where can people learn more about?
• 33:32
  Ellen Krause: I Choose Joy and your work.
• 33:34
  Chip Ingram: Well, they certainly can go to, you know, livingontheedgeorg.
• 33:38
  Chip Ingram: They can go to Amazon or any bookstore.
• 33:41
  Chip Ingram: And then we have we do have a Chip Ingram app.
• 33:44
  Chip Ingram: We have fresh messages every day, but we'll have the last six months and they're all free.
• 33:49
  Chip Ingram: And then at the bottom we have a little click on discipleship, so that, much like what you all do.
• 33:54
  Chip Ingram: We have these eight-minute.
• 33:56
  Chip Ingram: They're kind of mini teachings and I'll walk through and teach people how to study the Bible, how to journal, how to pray.
• 34:02
  Chip Ingram: So those are a couple good ways to do it.
• 34:05
  Chip Ingram: And, of course, listen to Moody Radio.
• 34:08
  Chip Ingram: That's always a good one.
• 34:09
  Ellen Krause: Excellent.
• 34:10
  Ellen Krause: Well, we will make sure we include links to all of those in our show notes.
• 34:14
  Ellen Krause: Before we let you go, I have to ask you a couple of our favorite questions, and the first one is I know you probably have a whole library of Bibles, but which Bible is your go-to Bible and what translation is it?
• 34:27
  Chip Ingram: I kind of have two.
• 34:28
  Chip Ingram: My go-to Bible is the New American Standard 1995.
• 34:32
  Chip Ingram: And you know they keep updating it just a little.
• 34:34
  Chip Ingram: But one of the things that Bricklayer helped me with and it was so was memorizing scripture.
• 34:41
  Chip Ingram: And so I memorized hundreds of scriptures in small books of the Bible.
• 34:45
  Chip Ingram: They're in the New American Standard and so even when I read another passage sometimes I misquote it because part of it's in my brain.
• 34:53
  Chip Ingram: And then, especially in narratives I really like.
• 34:57
  Chip Ingram: I like the NIV, I like the NIV 84.
• 35:01
  Chip Ingram: And again, they're all excellent translations and ESV.
• 35:04
  Chip Ingram: But those are probably my go-to passages.
• 35:09
  Chip Ingram: And then, devotionally, you know where I'm studying.
• 35:12
  Chip Ingram: It's always nice to you know.
• 35:13
  Chip Ingram: Check out Phillips translation.
• 35:15
  Chip Ingram: We have so many good tools.
• 35:17
  Chip Ingram: In fact, that's one of your other questions, isn't it?
• 35:20
  Ellen Krause: Yes, Let me ask you this Do you have any favorite Bible journaling supplies?
• 35:27
  Ellen Krause: Is that something that you do?
• 35:28
  Chip Ingram: Yes, In fact I kept saying on programs that I journaled, and so our Living on the Edge team, we have a prayer journal and I feel like everyone's looking for how exactly do you do that?
• 35:40
  Chip Ingram: And so I write down in the very beginning a few tips, because I think journaling can either get to become a duty or a performance or like, oh, I didn't do it today and you miss the point.
• 35:54
  Chip Ingram: And so I kind of line out what I think is the best way to do it and find your own way.
• 35:58
  Chip Ingram: And then it's kind of nice to have, you know, a few quotes just here and there to give people some perspective, but mostly a lot of white space.
• 36:08
  Chip Ingram: And, as I tell people, sometimes I'll journal five or six pages, sometimes I won't journal for a couple of days.
• 36:14
  Chip Ingram: I want to be explaining, I'm processing my heart out loud and this is so convicting.
• 36:21
  Chip Ingram: But I find I can think certain things, but when I write them out and I see them, it's a lot harder to lie to myself and to lie to God.
• 36:30
  Chip Ingram: And so I hope my journals shortly after my death will be burned because they're very raw.
• 36:38
  Chip Ingram: But I find is honest.
• 36:41
  Chip Ingram: You got to get honest with God and you got to get honest with yourself.
• 36:44
  Chip Ingram: So that's been a very, very powerful tool.
• 36:48
  Chip Ingram: It may not be for everybody, but it's been a powerful tool for me.
• 36:53
  Ellen Krause: Fantastic.
• 36:53
  Ellen Krause: Ok, well, links, links to those as well.
• 36:56
  Ellen Krause: Last question what's your favorite app or website for Bible study tools?
• 37:07
  Chip Ingram: or website for Bible study tools.
• 37:08
  Chip Ingram: I obviously use YouVersion on a regular basis and we have a lot of reading plans in there, but my favorite app is Logos.
• 37:14
  Chip Ingram: It is after all those years of studying.
• 37:16
  Chip Ingram: You know we had to.
• 37:17
  Chip Ingram: You know three years of Greek, two years of Hebrew and have every commentary and I push a button and I put a cursor over it and it'll it'll parse the verb for me and click word study.
• 37:27
  Chip Ingram: I thank God for the brilliant people who created and they have them at different levels.
• 37:33
  Chip Ingram: You know you don't have to bend a Bible school.
• 37:36
  Chip Ingram: You know there's.
• 37:37
  Chip Ingram: I don't know they have a color coded ones, but it is.
• 37:41
  Chip Ingram: Yeah, that's probably my favorite Bible ever.
• 37:46
  Ellen Krause: Awesome.
• 37:46
  Ellen Krause: Yes, I think that's our favorite as well.
• 37:49
  Ellen Krause: It is clearly just a phenomenal resource.
• 37:52
  Ellen Krause: Well, chip, thank you so much for joining us today and for sharing such practical, spirit-filled wisdom.
• 38:00
  Ellen Krause: Your insights from I Choose Joy are both timely and just deeply needed by people.
• 38:07
  Ellen Krause: So I appreciate your authenticity and just your willingness to share.
• 38:11
  Ellen Krause: So, thank you, guys are doing.
• 38:12
  Chip Ingram: And, as we said before we came on, the thrill to get to do that with your grown children is really, really special.
• 38:29
  Chip Ingram: So God bless you guys and thanks.
• 38:31
  Ellen Krause: Thank you so much and to our listeners.
• 38:33
  Ellen Krause: If this conversation encouraged you, make sure to check out Chip's book I Choose Joy.
• 38:39
  Ellen Krause: You can also learn more about his teaching ministry Living on the Edge through the links in our show notes.
• 38:46
  Ellen Krause: As always, if this episode blessed you, would you take just a moment to leave a review or share this with a friend?
• 38:53
  Ellen Krause: It helps support our work and allows more women to discover these conversations.
• 38:58
  Ellen Krause: We love you all.
• 39:00
  Ellen Krause: Thank you for being here.