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Episode 835: Does Money Bring You Joy?

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Join us today for an episode about the reason money is connected to happiness and joy but not the way you think...

Today's episode is focused on why understanding the difference between joy and happiness is important to realize where your money affects your emotion...

In today’s episode about impacting the world through stewarding your treasures, I talk with you about the connection between money and joy.  I also share why experiences are more rewarding than stuff.  I give you some tips on how to focus on joy rather than happiness with money.

Join in on the Chat below.

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Episode 835 Does Money Bring You Joy
[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: [00:00:00] Thanks for joining me on episode 835 of the inspired stewardship podcast.
[00:00:09] Patrick Annuci: [00:00:09] I'm Patrick from dad hackers, and I challenge you to become the man that you are called and created to be one way to be inspired to do this is to listen to this show. The inspired stewardship podcast with my friend Scott Maderer.
[00:00:25]Scott Maderer: [00:00:25] the way to look at both good times and bads and saying, but I'm going to go in to suck every moment out of this and every moment of joy and put this in my brain and I'm going to remember it because the truth is, think about it. You've had a vacation where things didn't go perfectly, but a year later, when you think back on that vacation, you still think.
[00:00:47] Favorably about the good things that happened on the vacation. Welcome, and thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcasts. If you truly desire to become the person who God [00:01:00] wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast.
[00:01:08] We'll learn to invest in yourself. Invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.
[00:01:17]And today's episode about impacting the world through stewarding your treasures. I talk with you about the connection between money and joy. Also share why experiences are more rewarding than stuff. And I give you some tips on how to focus on joy rather than happiness with money. As we talk about stewarding your treasures.
[00:01:39] Wouldn't it be great. If you could support this podcast and do it without costing yourself an extra dime, it turns out you can. All you have to do is use inspired stewardship.com/amazon. When you're ready to make a purchase via Amazon and a small commission, we'll come back to support the show. If [00:02:00] you enjoy the show, when you're ready to buy from Amazon, just use inspired stewardship.com/amazon.
[00:02:07] You've probably heard the expression money. Can't buy happiness and it's true. And it's not true in a way I've talked before about how there is a link between money and happiness, how as your income increases up to a certain amount, it does have a correlation with our happiness factor. But part of the problem is we don't really understand that what we're looking for.
[00:02:36] A lot of times, isn't happiness. It's joy. Remember, we've talked this week about how happiness is something that depends upon external circumstances and joy is something that comes from inside of you, your relationship and your understanding of yourself, how you are wired, how well you understand that, how content you are with [00:03:00] who you are, whether or not you're growing and these sorts of things.
[00:03:04] So part of the problem happens in that what we do is we use money to find happiness thinking that will bring us joy, but the truth is they're not directly connected. We go out and we buy a new car or we spend money on something that we think is going to be a long lasting happiness. And yet the truth is that we can get used to anything relatively quickly.
[00:03:28] That brings us happiness, that connects to us in that external way. Once you get your basic human needs met, adding more stuff, does it make you. More happy. You'll going from $20,000 of income to 50,000. Makes a big difference because now you can provide for more basic needs, but going from 50 to a hundred, doesn't make you twice as happy as you were at 50.
[00:03:57] The truth is you think that you'll get [00:04:00] more happiness. You'll get more pleasure through having more. Because of that, we end up chasing more all of the time, but the connection to joy is less about those underlying moments of happiness. And in fact, the stress of constantly pursuing more stuff and comparing yourself to others can Rob you.
[00:04:23] Of joy. It can add to more stress. There's an old joke that if you make a hundred dollars more than your relative or your friend next door, then you consider yourself rich. You find happiness in that and believe it or not, there is a comparison factor that comes in to our happiness and our joy. But as you learn to stop comparing yourself to the person next door, you find more joy.
[00:04:51] Because you stopped trying to compete. You stop trying to buy the newer car. You stop asking the wrong question and you begin to ask the [00:05:00] right question. The truth is the things that can find us joy in our life includes things like having good and deep and stable relationships, both with our family, as well as friends and others.
[00:05:13] It's about having people that you know, that you can call on and having a healthy relationship with them as well. It's about spending money on experiences rather than stuff going out to eat with friends, going on a vacation to Mexico, going on a trip that you have as an experience is a way of connecting, not just to happiness, but making it last longer because the memory of those experiences becomes what you actually.
[00:05:46] Focus on the memory of those experiences continues to bring you happiness long after just buying stuff would have done. Even looking for activities that challenge you, that force [00:06:00] you to grow that make you do more than you think you can do that. Push you beyond your limit. Often bring you joy in a way that just doing the bare minimum does not.
[00:06:13] Because the truth is it's not just about stuff. It's about things like friends and family and experience. What's more, it's also about giving. One of the reasons that I push people to develop a habit of giving is because it truly is better to give than receive when it comes to your joy and your happiness and finding ways to spend your energy.
[00:06:38] On the experiences that connect you in a deeper way, ends up creating a lot more reward in your life, over the long-term. But unfortunately in our culture, how we're sold to everything that comes about is we're told to spend your money on those. Consumer [00:07:00] items to buy the faster car, the nicer car, the neater car, or worse yet to lease it so that you can appear like you're better off than you really are to spend money that you don't even have to impress people that you don't even like.
[00:07:15] And the funny thing is if you'd spend more time finding and hanging out with the people that you do, like you'd actually find more joy and happiness, even if you're driving that old beater. Because the real secret is to recognize that no money can buy you temporary happiness, but it can't buy you. The permanence of joy in less, you spend that money in a way that aligns with your values, that aligns with your bigger goals, that finds ways to concentrate on not only creating experiences, but taking the experience and the memory from everything and wiring you that into yourself, finding the way to look at [00:08:00] both good times and bads and saying, but I'm going to.
[00:08:03] Going to suck every moment out of this and every moment of joy and put this in my brain and I'm going to remember it because the truth is, think about it. You've had a vacation where things didn't go perfectly, but a year later, when you think back on that vacation, you still think favorably about the good things that happened on the vacation and begin to gloss over and ignore the bad.
[00:08:28] But when you buy that new car, And three weeks, six weeks a year later, it's in the shop or there's now a stain on the front seat or other things have gone wrong. That stops bringing you joy very quickly. That's why the way we have our relationships and our experiences becomes the more important way to focus our money.
[00:08:50] If we really want to create joy instead of just momentary happiness in our life. Thanks for listening.
[00:08:59][00:09:00] thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast as a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you liked this episode on the stewardship of treasures. You can sign up for our treasures tips by going to inspired stewardship.com/treasures or text in the U S four four two two two treasures tips.
[00:09:36] And we'll send you five weeks of our best tips on stewarding your treasures until next time. Invest your time. Your talent and your treasures develop your influence and impact the world. .

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In today's episode, I talk with you about:

  • The connection between money and joy... 
  • Why experiences are more rewarding than stuff...
  • Some tips on how to focus on joy rather than happiness with money...
  • and more.....

Find ecstasy in life: the mere sense of living is joy enough. - Emily Dickinson

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Some of the Resources recommended in this episode:

I make a commission for purchases made through the following link.

Let Me Know What you Think Below....

Episode 834: Joy Versus Happiness

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Join us today for an episode about the reason joy and happiness are not the same thing...

Today's episode is focused on the difference between joy and happiness and why you should focus on joy...

In today’s episode about impacting the world through stewarding your talent, I talk with you about why joy and happiness aren’t the same thing.  I talk about why focusing on joy is better than just focusing on happiness.  I also talk about how you can begin to see joy in your life.

Join in on the Chat below.

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Episode 834 Joy Versus Happiness
[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: [00:00:00] Thanks for joining me on episode 834 of the inspired stewardship podcast. I'm
[00:00:08] Ryan Englin: [00:00:08] Ryan Englin with core matters and the blue collar culture podcast. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasure is to live out your calling.
[00:00:21] Having the ability to grow yourself and your business is key and way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Maderer.
[00:00:34] Scott Maderer: [00:00:34] trust me. I will admit to this. I am not perfect in this. This is something I've been working on. I've been keeping a daily gratitude journal. Now for several years, it's something that I've paid attention to over a lot of time. And yet there are still days and times where I struggled to find the joy in the moment.
[00:00:54] I'm
[00:00:55] Ryan Englin: [00:00:55] Ryan England with core matters and the blue collar culture podcast. I challenge you to [00:01:00] invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasure is to live out your calling, having the ability to grow yourself and your business is key.
[00:01:12] And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Mader.
[00:01:19]Scott Maderer: [00:01:19] And today's episode about impacting the world through stewarding your talent. I talk with you about why joy and happiness. Aren't the same thing I talk about why focusing on joy is better than just focusing on happiness. And I also share with you some tips on how you can begin to see joy in your life.
[00:01:38] You've heard me talk about developing your talent and one of the best ways to do that is through books. But if you're like most people today, it's hard to find the time to read. And that's why today's podcast is brought to you by audible. Go to inspired stewardship.com/audible to sign up and you can get a 30 day free [00:02:00] trial.
[00:02:00] There's over 180,000 titles to choose from. And you can pick one and listen your way to developing your talents via audible. That's inspired stewardship.com/audible to get your free trial and listen to great books the same way you're listening to this podcast. So all this week, we're spending a lot of time talking about joy and happiness.
[00:02:27] And the truth is they're not the same thing. I talked a little bit about that on Tuesday, but I wanted to go into it a little bit more. Right now, happiness is external it's based on the situations, the events, the people, the places, the things, the thoughts it's. Based on hope it's often future-oriented in that it puts all of the eggs of happiness into something that has to happen from outside of you.
[00:02:58] That aligns perfectly [00:03:00] with your expectations from inside of you and the fact that these things don't usually align generally cause us to have moments of unhappiness instead. But joy is a consistent feeling. That's cultivated internally. It comes from being at peace with who you are with why you are, how you are understanding yourself, how you're wired, how you act, understanding how others are wired and how they act and not being dependent upon them.
[00:03:38] But instead being comfortable in your own skin, being comfortable in who you are and how you exist and your relationship with God and with others, so that you become centered and mindful of your own connection to joy. It's not tied to [00:04:00] those external things that this is why joy is not created by stuff.
[00:04:05] Which we'll talk more about tomorrow. Instead, joy is created by those feelings that come out of ourselves. This is one of the reasons why therapy and spending time actually understanding yourself can be so valuable in bringing you long term joy. And the truth is focusing on joy is more powerful than focusing on happiness, because you can develop yourself.
[00:04:34] You can learn about yourself, you can grow yourself, you can develop a better relationship and feeling around yourself without having to depend on others to change. It's something you have more control over. And because you can focus on this, you can focus on growing yourself and your own relationship and your own mindset and your own beliefs.
[00:05:00] [00:04:59] You can control reaching joy. You can very seldom control whether or not a particular moment brings you happiness. But interestingly, as you find a deeper connection with joy, you will find more and more moments of happiness as well. So what are some steps that we can take to begin to see joy in our life?
[00:05:23] We talked about some of them yesterday, but I also wanted to go into some more today. One thing is you can limit your exposure to negativity that may mean limiting your social media exposure, limiting exposure to things like the news media. It means limiting what enters your brain because garbage in means garbage out.
[00:05:47] This is one of the reasons why I also talk about using meditation and spiritual and prayer time as a way of beginning to find joy. It's also the power of a gratitude [00:06:00] journal, because as you write those things down, that you're joyful for each and every day, your brain begins to look for those things during the day.
[00:06:09] See, we see what we see because we prime our brain to think. About it and to look for it. And as we do that, we begin to open up our moment and it really doesn't matter whether you're looking at things that are happiness or joy. In fact, I would argue that writing gratitude for both of those is important, but what's interesting is if you do this long enough, you'll find the things that bring you the most happiness are those things that aren't just external things.
[00:06:41] There are things that are connected in a deeper way. There are things that grow your relationships. There are things that help you communicate better with others. There are things that deepen your spiritual walk, there, things that develop you as a human being in a way that you weren't developed before.
[00:06:59] The things [00:07:00] that really change and challenge you are often the biggest moments of joy. This is why you can find joy, even in challenging and difficult times. But what's interesting is you have to begin to cultivate the mindset of finding joy all of the time or else. Whenever those difficult times come, you automatically respond, recognizing that you're not feeling happy and you equate that with not feeling joy, but the truth is if you can cultivate this in good times, Then you can see it even in bad times.
[00:07:37] And trust me, I will admit to this. I am not perfect in this. This is something I've been working on. I've been keeping a daily gratitude journal. Now for several years, it's something that I've paid attention to over a lot of time. And yet there are still days and times where I struggled to find the joy in the moment.
[00:07:58] This is something that you have to [00:08:00] do as a regular habit and routine, to be able to create that mindset so that in those days where it's really hard to find the joy, you can step back and refocus and reorient yourself and recognize that even at the worst of times, There is joy to be found and that you are supposed to be a joyful person.
[00:08:27] This is. Part of what we're called to do into the world. This isn't fake happiness either. It's not about not being sad. It's not about not feeling grief. It's not about not recognizing the emotions that you feel and accepting those and being present in those it's about recognizing that beyond those.
[00:08:47] They're still things to be joyful for. Thanks for listening.
[00:08:53]thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast as a subscriber and listener, we [00:09:00] challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you liked this episode on the stewardship of talent, you can go over to inspired stewardship.com/talent.
[00:09:18] And sign up for our five week series on the stewardship of talent, or if you're in the us, you can text four, four, two, two, two talent tips. That's talent tips to four four, two, two, two, and get those tips until next time. Invest your time. Your talent and your treasures develop your influence and impact the world. .

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In today's episode, I talk with you about:

  • Why joy and happiness aren’t the same thing...
  • Why focusing on joy is better than just focusing on happiness...
  • How you can begin to see joy in your life...
  • and more.....

To have joy in your heart, one must know how to appreciate the small things in life. - Anonymous

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Some of the Resources recommended in this episode:

I make a commission for purchases made through the following link.

Let Me Know What you Think Below....

Episode 833: Finding Time for Joy

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Join us today for an episode about the reason you have to be intentional about creating time to find joy...

Today's episode is focused on being intentional in building the habit of joy...

In today’s episode about impacting the world by stewarding your time, I talk with you about how Joy can be something you find.  I share how you can make time to find joy in your life every day.  I also share some tips on creating time for joy.

Join in on the Chat below.

 

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Episode 833 Finding Time for Joy
[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: [00:00:00] Thanks for joining me on episode 833 of the inspired stewardship podcast.
[00:00:07] Heather Heuman: [00:00:07] I'm Heather Heuman from sweet tea, social marketing. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasures to live out your calling.
[00:00:23] Having the ability to reach others is key. And one way to be inspired to do just that is to listen to this. The inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Maderer.
[00:00:37]Scott Maderer: [00:00:37] this is joy is not something that we actually can't find. It's just something that we learn to stop looking for. And as we stop looking for it, it stops showing up. But you can take just five minutes a day or just 10 minutes a day and spend that doing a [00:01:00] gratitude journal. Welcome. And thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast.
[00:01:06] If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent. And your treasures for your true calling in the inspired stewardship podcast. We'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.
[00:01:27]In today's episode about impacting the world by stewarding your time. I talk with you about how joy can be something you find. I share how you can make time to find joy in your life every day, even if times are tough. And I also share some tips on creating time for joy. As we talk about stewarding your time.
[00:01:48] Wouldn't it be great. If you could support this podcast and do it without just taking too long, it turns out you can't. All you have to do is use inspired stewardship.com/amazon. [00:02:00] When you're ready to make a purchase via Amazon and a small commission will come back to support the show. Just that quick. If you enjoy the show, when you are ready to buy from Amazon, just use inspired stewardship.com/amazon.
[00:02:15]As we talked about yesterday, when we were talking about happiness versus joy from a biblical perspective today, I wanted to talk a little bit about time and joy. Know, one of the interesting things is that we often, when it comes to happiness, we feel like it just happens to us. Certain events happen.
[00:02:35] And now we've declared that we're happy a different event happens and we're unhappy. But again, joy is something deeper than that. It's something that I believe you actually heck have to actively go about trying to make the time. In your life to be able to feel it, to be able to be connected to it. It doesn't just happen by accident.
[00:03:00] [00:02:59] Joy instead is something that you find by actively seeking it out, but it can often start in small movements and small moments of time. It doesn't have to be created in this large, massive change. This isn't about uprooting your entire life and reprogramming it instead. It's about helping you to think small and focus on specific things that you can do each day to find joy.
[00:03:33]It's interesting, but the more you train your spell self to begin to spot joy, the more you'll see it. If you are able to, let's say you have some control over your schedule and your time. Can you align errands and other events with small little things that give you a moment of joy or happiness?
[00:03:56] Like maybe as well as going to the store, you can swing by the [00:04:00] dog park and just watch the dogs play. Or you can go by a museum or a gallery or a park and spend just a few moments. In something that is different than your day to day place, the day to day place that you spend every day by breaking up your day routine, you can begin to notice the things that you've tended to ignore that are things that you it'd be grateful and joyous about.
[00:04:28] You can also create a joy budget, a certain amount of money that you can spend. And we'll talk more about that on Friday's episode. But what else can we do from a time perspective? Know, the interesting thing is we often let the future Rob us of the moments of joy that we have today. Staying focused on the present as opposed to anything that's coming down the pike since can sometimes help us notice the moments in the present to be joyful for.
[00:04:59] Think [00:05:00] about how you. Have all of your senses engaged in the moment. Don't just notice yourself sitting on a zoom meeting, but think about how the floor feels under your feet, how the air conditioning feels on your cheek. If you get in touch with the feelings of your body, it often helps you identify feelings of spirit as well.
[00:05:21] I've already talked about changing up your routine in past episodes, instead of doing the same thing every single day, find small shifts that you can do in your daily routine. Make sure that you're also taking time out for spiritual development and for mindfulness, for meditation, prayer, and these sorts of things.
[00:05:42] I've talked before about keeping a gratitude journal. You can keep a joy journal as well. You can also find joy in sometimes doing something silly or unusual or something that you would never do before. Challenge yourself to do something out of the [00:06:00] ordinary. One of the things that I do that is out of the ordinary for me, but it is something that I find joy in is challenging myself to start up conversations with random strangers.
[00:06:11] So back whenever I could go to a Starbucks, I would challenge myself to start up a conversation with the person in line in front or behind me in the Starbucks. And it's interesting because I've had some of the most interest, the conversations that I started. Just randomly with a stranger in an airport or in a very various Starbucks or other restaurants in places.
[00:06:36] Look at your task list and try to find two or three or five or 10 small little things that you can get done. Sometimes crossing a large number of small events off helps us feel that deeper connection to joy. See, the truth is joy is not. Something that we actually can't find. It's just [00:07:00] something that we learn to stop looking for.
[00:07:03] And as we stop looking for it, it stops showing up. But you can take just five minutes a day or just 10 minutes a day and spend that doing a gratitude journal, spin that outside, or breaking up your routine or doing something silly or challenging that you've never done before. And even just five minutes a day, each and every day, we'll reprogram you to begin to pay attention to the things around you in a different way.
[00:07:35] And as you do that, you will get a deeper connection to what brings you joy. And you will begin to see it instead of ignoring it. But you've got to make it a habit. You've got to do it as a routine, something that you do each and every day. Thanks for listening.
[00:07:53]thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast as a subscriber and [00:08:00] listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you liked this episode on the stewardship of time, be sure to sign up for our stewardship of time tips series by going to inspired stewardship.com/time or texting four four, two, two, two time tips, and that'll get you our best tips on stewarding your time until next time.
[00:08:38] Invest your time. Your talent and your treasures develop your influence and impact the world. .

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In today's episode, I talk with you about:

  • How Joy can be something you find...
  • How you can make time to find joy in your life every day...
  • Some tips on creating time for joy...
  • and more.....

Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day. - Henri Nouwen

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Some of the Resources recommended in this episode:

I make a commission for purchases made through the following link.

Let Me Know What you Think Below....

Episode 832: Joy in the Bible

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Join us today for an episode about the difference in joy and happiness in the Bible...

Today's episode is focused on passages about joy and happiness in the Bible...

In today’s spiritual foundation episode about impacting the world, I talk with you about why happiness and joy aren’t the same in the Bible.  I share several examples from the Bible of joy and happiness.  I also talk about why joy is more permanent than happiness.

Join in on the Chat below.

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Episode 832 Joy in the Bible
[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: [00:00:00] Thanks for joining me on episode 832 of the inspired stewardship podcast.
[00:00:08] Jennifer Lazzatto: [00:00:08] I'm Jennifer Lozado, author of inheriting chaos with compassion. I encourage you to find the ways to be loving with your family both before and after you pass. And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Maderer.
[00:00:30] Scott Maderer: [00:00:30] see, I think
[00:00:30] one of the problems that we have as we pursue happiness, because we want it to be a permanent condition. When by definition, happiness is never going to be a permanent. Condition happiness has to be temporary because it is not rooted in a relationship that is a terminal. Welcome. And thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcasts.
[00:00:56] If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, [00:01:00] then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling and the inspired stewardship podcast. We'll learn to invest in yourself. Invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.
[00:01:17]And today's spiritual foundation episode about impacting the world. I talk with you about why happiness and joy. Aren't actually the same thing in the Bible. I share several examples from the Bible of joy and of happiness. And I also talk with you about why joy is more permanent than happiness. One of the things that struck me this week when I was talking to Stacy Henry was when she was talking about the idea of opening that present.
[00:01:49] And that part felt joy that she felt as she did it. The truth is. That joy is something that I think [00:02:00] most of us as human beings really want. We seek that out. We seek out the deep whole soul filled feeling of joy. But one of the things that happens to us is I think we confuse joy and happiness.
[00:02:17] And I wanted to explore that a little bit this week around these areas of spirituality, time, talent, and treasures. So I'll talk through that this week. And today I wanted to talk about why happiness and joy are not necessarily the same thing. And if you read through the Bible, you'll even notice this, that those words are used differently in a way.
[00:02:44] Now the truth is that the words that are used in the Bible, of course, that we're reading in English are translated. And oftentimes when those translations are made, there's not necessarily a huge distinction made between [00:03:00] happiness and joy that comes through into English. But if you look through it and you really pay attention to it, you'll start to see some subtle.
[00:03:11] Differences, happiness. At least in the biblical sense is often used to describe that emotional feeling that we have when something good happens to us from outside. You get a big check and you feel happiness. It tends to be temporary. It tends to be fleeting. And it tends to be ever-changing.
[00:03:32]If you consistently get big checks, you stop feeling happiness around them until you get an even bigger one. It's a moving target. But joy on the other hand is used to describe the soul level happiness and at least in a spiritual sense for me as a Christian, it comes from having faith and beholding the beauty of Christ.
[00:03:58] It's rooted, [00:04:00] not in myself and not an external. Circumstances instead, it's rooted around the relationship that I have with God. And it's why if I begin to recognize that and focus on that, I can have feelings of joy, even when I'm not happy, even when things are not going well in my life, I can still come back to.
[00:04:24] Joy because I still have faith. The truth is what causes happiness is the presence of these external things. And when you take them away, then you feel loss. You feel unhappiness, but joy is about that relationship that we have with God. And that's really a big difference. So for instance, happiness is in the Bible.
[00:04:53] If you think about the example of Samson, a truly a hero of the Bible did a lot of work, [00:05:00] built the temple, all of these things. He sought happiness in his relationships though, with other humans, with women and with other men. And he often, because of that, if you read through. The story of Samson in judges, you will also see a lot of unhappiness as well.
[00:05:22] He was frustrated. He was happy when things went well and angry and sorrowful, when things did not go his way, he wasn't really experiencing that deep joy that I was just talking about. But joy in the Bible, if you look at things like Nehemiah, In Nehemiah chapter eight, verse 10, where he says joy of the Lord is by strength in the Psalms there's constant refrain of joy.
[00:05:53] It, James says, take joy in your trials in Peter first, [00:06:00] Peter, he says, I feel joy in all of these relationships that we have with Jesus though. You do not see him. You believe in him and rejoice with joy. The outtake outcome of your faith. So Paul is telling people, if you look at Philippians rejoice in the Lord, always again, I will say rejoice there's example, after example of calling out the difference between the temporary feelings of happiness and the deep rooted relationship with God that can lead.
[00:06:36] To joy. This is why joy can be a more permanent feeling than happiness, because the truth is joy is rooted in something that is a relationship with the eternal. And because of that, it can last longer and be deeper and have a relationship with you that [00:07:00] allows you. To be happy when you have moments of happiness, but to also feel sadness and moments of sadness and to be okay with the fact that you're not happy all of the time.
[00:07:12] See, I think one of the problems that we have as we pursue happiness, because we want it to be a permanent condition when by definition, happiness. Is never going to be a permanent condition. Happiness has to be temporary because it is not rooted in a relationship that is eternal. So how do you seek out joy?
[00:07:36] You develop that relationship with God. You develop that relationship at a deep level that lasts forever. There is where your joy lies. Thanks for listening.
[00:07:50]so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast as a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit [00:08:00] back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoy this episode, do me a favor. Go over to facebook.com/inspired stewardship. And like our Facebook page and market that you'd like to get notifications from us so that we can connect with you on Facebook and make sure that we're serving you to the best of our abilities with time and tips there until next time, invest your time.
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In today's episode, I talk with you about:

  • Why happiness and joy aren’t the same in the Bible...
  • Several examples from the Bible of joy and happiness...
  • Why joy is more permanent than happiness...
  • and more.....

Happiness is based on what’s happening, but joy is based on what we believe. - Anonymous

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