What to Do When You Can't Feel Joy: Breaking Through Barriers to Lasting Joy as a Christian Woman [Podcast Transcript]

Title: What to Do When You Can't Feel Joy: Breaking Through Barriers to Lasting Joy as a Christian Woman

Podcast Date: February 3, 2026

Listen Here: 

Description

Do you ever feel like joy is just out of reach? Is it something you have to work for, fake, or wait for some future version of yourself to finally experience? Heather Creekmore gets it—and she’s opening up in this episode with honesty about her own struggles to feel true joy, even while doing “all the right things” as a Christian.

In this episode, Heather Creekmore shares her journey through perfectionism, body image battles, and chasing joy through achievements, life changes, and even motherhood, only to find that joy can’t be manufactured through striving, positivity, or “arriving.” What actually blocks our joy, and how do we finally break free?

You’ll hear:

• The difference between happiness and joy—why this matters more than you might think
  
  
• The three big “joy blockers” and how they can sneak into anyone’s life (even when you know all the right answers!)
  
  
• Vulnerable storytelling about wrestling with body image, marriage, and motherhood, and what happens when joy doesn’t show up as you hoped
  
  
• Practical, faith-based strategies for actually growing in joy—no matter what your circumstances
  
  
• Encouragement to stop chasing “just over yonder” happiness and instead, rest in the truth of where joy is really found
  
  
• A free resource just for you: The “Obsessed to Blessed” mini-course at improvebodyimage.com/obsessed-to-blessed, helping you bookend your search for joy and freedom from body image struggles
  
  

Whether you’re feeling joyless, weighed down by shoulds, or just yearning for something real and lasting, this conversation is a hug for your soul and a nudge towards real hope. If you’re ready to stop comparing and start living, this episode is a must-listen.

Resources Mentioned:

• Free Mini-Course: “Obsessed to Blessed” – learn more and sign up at improvebodyimage.com/obsessed-to-blessed
  
  
• Work with Heather and her team to find your joy. Learn more here: https://www.improvebodyimage.com/christian-body-image-courses-and-coaching
  
  Don’t miss out—press play and rediscover the joy that’s closer than you think!
  
  

Subscribe, share, and join the community as we break free from comparison and uncover the joy that lasts.

Transcript

Disclaimer: This transcript is AI-generated and has not been edited for accuracy or clarity.

Heather Creekmore [00:00:02]:

Life Audio. Hey there, Heather Creekmore here. I'm glad you're listening to the Compare to youo podcast today. Here's my question for you. It's February. How are you doing with joy this year? Is joy something that overflows in your life or is joy something that you feel like you work hard to find or act like you have it, but but it just doesn't feel real most days. If that's where you're at today, this episode is for you. Today we're talking about what do you do when you can't feel joy? Where do I find joy? How do I grow in joy? That's where we're going today.

Heather Creekmore [00:00:47]:

I'm so glad you're here for it. Hey, I wanna tell you about something that we did just for you and I wanna make sure you take advantage of it. It's a free mini course available at improvebodyimage.com, it's called OBS to Blessed. And I'm getting so much positive feedback from the women that have jumped in with that. There's a lot there. It's just a couple modules. It's absolutely free and it really could be helpful to you if you're lacking in joy and if you think your body image is the reason for that. So go to improvebodyimage.com obsessed-to blessed.

Heather Creekmore [00:01:28]:

Obsessed to blessed. The link is also in the show notes and grab that free mini course. Now let's get to today's episode. How do we grow? Enjoy. That's the million dollar question today. And where I want us to go is I'm to start by sharing my story. It's been a few years since I shared my story on the podcast in this way, and so maybe if you're newer to the show, you've never even heard my story. But I want to share it today in the context of the struggle I had even as a Christian woman, even as someone who knew all the God and Jesus answers.

Heather Creekmore [00:02:18]:

I knew scripture, but man, it felt hard to find joy in my life. And so I'm going to share my story and then I'm going to share with you three things that I think block us from feeling and finding joy. The joy that Jesus kind of tells us we should have and can have as Christians in this life, here, now on Earth, no matter what the circumstances. And then we're going to talk about three ways that you can grow in joy. I've been immersed in this topic this week as I've been preparing to teach on joy at our Women's conference at our church. Shout out to Lakeview Bible Church, Austin. Woot woot. And I thought as I was preparing, I was like, you know what, My podcast listeners could probably be encouraged by this too.

Heather Creekmore [00:03:03]:

So I hope you are. Let's jump right into it. So my story, it's always funny for me to tell my testimony because I feel like it is like the most vanilla, most boring testimony out there. I used to feel jealous, envious of people who had these dramatic testimonies of, you know, being caught in a addiction or just like having a long rap sheet of things and feeling like God just rescued them and restored them and healed them and changed them and helped them just do a 180 turn from where they were. And my story isn't like that at all. In fact, did I use the word vanilla because I feel like it was pretty vanilla. Like white girl raised in the suburbs, in church three times a week, started going to Christian school in seventh grade, went to Christian college, went to Christian graduate school. Boring.

Heather Creekmore [00:04:07]:

And honestly, I was a good girl. I mean, yeah, remember lying a few times, twisting the truth, colorfully omitting facts, those sorts of things. But I felt like as far as living the Christian life went, I was doing pretty well. I hadn't really done anything that bad. I had avoided all the quote unquote major sins, and yet I did not have joy. Now, was I happy? Sometimes, of course, of course there were moments of happiness, but a lot of that happiness had to do with achievements and. And I learned pretty quickly that the buzz of happiness after achievement fades really fast. And I just had this one like all consuming struggle.

Heather Creekmore [00:05:07]:

And it was something that was just always in my head all the time, 24 hours a day. Okay, maybe not 24 hours a day, but I'm pretty sure I dreamt about it too. And that was changing my body. You see, starting around the third grade, I remember looking into the full length mirror in my bedroom, wearing pink pleather pants and deciding that my legs were too fat. And I went to school and I looked around and I noticed that the legs of the other little girls were not as big as mine. And therefore I did have a problem. My legs were indeed too fat. That was third grade.

Heather Creekmore [00:05:47]:

So by middle school, I was dieting with my mom. Whatever diet she was on, I was on too, just maybe to a lesser degree. But I tried to follow the points plan or only drink the shakes two times a day and eat a healthy dinner. You know, whatever plan she was following, I was trying to do it too. By high school, though, I'm an overachiever. I was like, yeah, following a plan. Like, I can do better than that. I can just not eat.

Heather Creekmore [00:06:18]:

And so that became a goal of mine every day to try not to eat. And what would happen is I could make it most of the day, you know, rush out the door to school, be busy at school all day, skip lunch, which is a very unfortunately typical thing for high school girls to do. I could do after school activities, get home around 5 o' clock and have made it most of that time or all of that time without eating. But then I'd get home and I'd be ravenous. And so I would snack and I would grab things and I would eat a normal dinner with my family and I would just eat, eat, eat. And I would go to bed feeling like I had done something wrong, like I had failed, because I vowed to myself that I wasn't going to eat. And I broke that vow. I ate.

Heather Creekmore [00:07:01]:

And that happened almost every single day. And the thing is, I didn't know that was disordered thinking or disordered behavior. I mean, in some ways, like, people would applaud you for being able to skip a meal or say no to the pizza or whatever it was. It felt like I was doing something good by choosing not to eat. By college, my sophomore year, I had lost my period for about nine months. And at that time, there wasn't a category of eating disorders for people like me. If you were anorexic, you were underweight, and you looked like you were on an after school special, you were super thin. And if you were bulimic, you were purging.

Heather Creekmore [00:07:48]:

And I wasn't able to purge, although I did try. And I did feel some shame about not being able to do that. And it felt like to me, joy was something that I could attain if I just got my body the way I wanted it to be. Like I had. Again, I had the God of Jesus answer. Yep, Jesus is where the joy is. Joy of Lord is my strength. I could tell you all the verses, and yet what I really believed, right? Because what we believe is more than just what we think.

Heather Creekmore [00:08:22]:

What we believe is how we act, right? If you say you believe something and then you act, otherwise, you don't really believe what you say you believe. And so I said, I believe Jesus was where the joy was. But the way I acted was that the joy was actually going to be found in something here on this earth. That the joy was going to be found when I could get my body just the way I wanted it to be. I wanted it to be a certain size. I wanted it to look a certain way. I wanted certain parts to be shaped in a certain way. I wanted my skin to be clear.

Heather Creekmore [00:08:56]:

I wanted my hair to be good. All of those things were obsessions of mine. And I chased body change, thinking that's where I'd find joy. I told you about my restrictive tendencies. But what I didn't tell you was when I got out of college and moved to Washington D.C. to work on Capitol Hill, I discovered exercise. Now, I had dabbled in exercise, I did some running, that sort of thing. But I was able to go into a gym and see those fitness instructors.

Heather Creekmore [00:09:30]:

And I had a thought when I saw them. I thought, you know what, If I could just be one of those people with a little microphone and the word instructor across my back, I am sure those people, they're satisfied. They have joy. They're not trying to fix their bodies. They're there, they've arrived. And so I made that a personal goal. Now I had jobs, like full time jobs, but on the side. I was pursuing becoming a certified fitness instructor.

Heather Creekmore [00:09:58]:

And eventually I started teaching classes after work, before work, anytime I could, because that was how I was really going to prove myself. The only problem was it didn't work and I didn't find more joy once I started teaching kickboxing or spinning classes. In fact, almost the opposite happened. I got to that place that I had always dreamt of being, and instead of feeling free and alive, man, I compared myself more than ever. I noticed every woman in that room, in that aerobic studio, who had better legs than I did, who was more in shape than I was, who was thinner than I was, it didn't work. And then I realized, okay, you know what? Maybe this hasn't been really about my body. Maybe this has really been about me being single. If I could just fix my single status, then that's where the joy comes, right? I've always longed to be married.

Heather Creekmore [00:10:53]:

If I could just find a man, get married, my body image issues will disappear and joy will flood over me like a tsunami. And so finally, at age 30, my husband and I met on a little dating app. At the time, it actually wasn't an app, it was a computer program. Apps didn't exist then called eharmony. We had Both just turned 30 years old. He was a Marine fighter pilot. And when I got matched with him, I clicked, yes, please. It wasn't really a choice, but that's what I felt like I was clicking.

Heather Creekmore [00:11:28]:

And we started dating and we were just Kind of together after that first date. And we got married about 15 months later. And I remember distinctly waking up after our wedding night. We were in a little hotel room in Washington, D.C. downtown by the White House. So the rooms at those hotels are not very large. And I remember sitting up in bed and looking in this very old Antiquish mirror that was kind of in front of the bed and thinking, I don't feel any different. Like, I am supposed to feel like the happiest woman on earth right now because I am married.

Heather Creekmore [00:12:06]:

And. And I still just feel like me. I feel the same. It didn't work. I was so devastated that it didn't work. In fact, I was so devastated that didn't work, I pretty much spent most of our honeymoon blaming my husband. Like, you must be doing something wrong, because I don't feel the way I thought I was going to feel. You must not be saying the right things.

Heather Creekmore [00:12:27]:

You must not be acting the right way. Like, this is not what I wanted it to be, and it must be your fault. And as you can imagine, that didn't make for a very wonderful honeymoon. Our journey into marriage was a little rough. Four months into marriage, I actually got pregnant. And again, I thought, well, this is where the joy is, because I've always wanted to be a mom. I'm going to have a baby. I mean, I'm just going to be flooded with warm, fuzzy mommy feelings.

Heather Creekmore [00:13:00]:

And this is gonna solve everything. This is gonna make our marriage better. This is gonna take away my body image issues because I am gonna have another person to keep alive. So how in the world could I have time to obsess over what I look like? Like I'm gonna have something important to do. And I really believe motherhood would solve everything, that it would bring the joy that I had longed for. And instead, ah, it was just hard. Oh, man. I loved, loved, loved our babies.

Heather Creekmore [00:13:32]:

We had four in just under five years. No twins. So I was pregnant or breastfeeding for a solid four plus years. And I loved each of those babies. But I struggled, too. I had some postpartum depression in there, even maybe a little bit of postpartum psychosis. I did not feel joyful. I was living this dream that I had always, always wanted to be a wife, to be a mom.

Heather Creekmore [00:14:06]:

I had a great husband. I had beautiful, healthy children. And yet I did not feel joy. And the bigger struggle was I thought I had the God and Jesus answer, right? Like, I listened to the sermons. Jesus is where the joy is. You know, Find Jo in the Lord just Get to know the Lord and then you'll have joy. And I was like, I do know the Lord. I do read the Bible sometimes.

Heather Creekmore [00:14:33]:

I pray a lot. I go to church. I'm involved in church. Where is my joy? Why don't I have it? And so that's where we're going today. I'm going to continue to share with you my story as I share with you what I discovered about why I didn't feel joy. And then I'm going to give you three strategies for increasing in joy. Okay, so to begin, we have to define terms correctly. Okay, so a lot of times we might say we're in the pursuit of happiness.

Heather Creekmore [00:15:03]:

And there's nothing wrong with happiness. Happiness is fantastic. But there's a difference between happiness and joy. Happiness is really sourced by circumstances or outcomes or experiences. I did this thing, I experienced this thing and made me happy. Joy is deeper. The source of joy is always and only Jesus and our salvation in him. Happiness is more of an emotional response, whereas joy goes beyond our feelings.

Heather Creekmore [00:15:31]:

It's a deeper posture. It's a more settled place of knowing whose you are, who you belong to. And so that makes it different from just feeling happiness. Happiness is temporary and changeable, whereas joy is enduring and resilient. And happiness answers the question, is life going well right now? If life's going well, then I'm happy. If it's not going well, then maybe I'm not so happy. But joy answers the question. Is my life grounded in something? Or at least someone secure? If we're looking for happiness, we're vulnerable to stress, loss and disappointment because those things can make our happiness disappear in a flash.

Heather Creekmore [00:16:18]:

But joy is different because joy is able to coexist with grief, with hardship, and with uncertainty. You see, joy doesn't deny pain. Joy outlasts our pain. So why couldn't I find joy? I think I couldn't find joy because I spelled joy wrong. Okay, I don't mean that literally. I know it's spelled joy, but I thought that joy stood for just over yonder. I thought joy was something that I needed to strive for, work for, try to find, achieve. And what I've learned now is that misspelling joy is what creates that block that we all feel sometimes.

Heather Creekmore [00:17:02]:

And there's three main ways that I think we search for just over yonder, joy. And those three ways are we believe that joy comes when you get it all right? That joy comes when you get there. It's an arrival based joy, or that joy comes when you just get positive. You Just have great positive thinking. So we're going to go through those three lies, because these are lies. This is not where joy comes from. Joy comes from Jesus alone. And a lot of us believe a Jesus plus gospel that joy will come when I have Jesus plus this.

Heather Creekmore [00:17:35]:

And these are those three lies that kind of fill in the blank in that Jesus plus equation. So the first one is just over yonder. Joy believes that joy comes when you get it all right, I'm going to call this get it right Joy and Get it right Joy looks for to do lists for success, right? Like, if I just do parenting just right. If I do marriage just right, I have to do this, this, this, this, then I will unlock joy. It's like Joy is locked in this combination lock box. And if I do this three clicks to the right, and if I do this seven clicks to the left, and if I do this 14 clicks to the right and boom, the box of joy is unlocked for me. We can even treat our Christian life in this way, right? We can believe that I need to be a good Christian through three clicks to the right, seven clicks to the left. If I just do all the things, then I will feel joy.

Heather Creekmore [00:18:33]:

But in that, in even just doing all the things, even if they are good things, we miss the giver of joy. We miss Jesus. And so believing that you unlock the formula for joy when you get it right, what does this lead to? Oh, friend, this leads to perfectionism, legalism. It leads to this be the best or do better kind of drive, or we're always shoulding all over ourselves. Like, you should do this, you should do this, you should do this. We are striving to do all the things. And friend, you know as well as I do, especially, especially in the realm of body image issues or what we may call health, right now, doing all the things is almost enough to make you crazy. In fact, when I give this talk, when I gave it this weekend, I shared a hilarious video from Instagram, which you can see in the YouTube version of this podcast.

Heather Creekmore [00:19:29]:

And this is talking about, like, what have you tried to change your body in the decade of January? And she just goes through hilarious lists of, like, you have to do all the things. And after you do all the things, you have to make sure you get the nine hours of sleep, and you have to make sure that you're not stressed about doing all the things. And we know what this feels like, don't we get it all right, Joy? When we believe that if we just get it all right, like a perfect culmination, a friend that puts us on a treadmill. And it's a treadmill that doesn't stop because we think we're getting on the treadmill. Like we're going to get there. I'm going to get my health right, I'm going to get my body right, I'm going to get my marriage right, my family right, my Christian life right. And you get on, you start running, running, running, running, running. But you're on a treadmill.

Heather Creekmore [00:20:16]:

You never really arrive anywhere. And in fact, what happens is, as you try to get it right and try to get it right and try to get it right, the pressure increases. So it's beep, beep, beep. You started maybe running at a four speed, and now you're at a five, and then you're at to six. Beep, beep, beep, beep. Now you're at a seven. Okay, now we're going to add some incline. Beep, beep, beep.

Heather Creekmore [00:20:35]:

And you're running and you're running and you're running and you're running and you're running and running. And what happens, oh, friend, it is exhausting. And instead of finding joy, you find burnout, you find stress. The joy that you thought would come, that would unlock when you got it all right never comes that way. In the talk I gave, I created a little slide with a theme song for everyone of these lies. And I think the theme song for Get It Right Joy is the song from Greatest Showman, I love the Greatest Shaman, and it's the song where she sings. I'm not going to try to sing it for you, but it's never enough. Never enough.

Heather Creekmore [00:21:16]:

Never, never, never enough. Never, never. Right? That's what happens when we believe. Joy comes from getting it all right. And so right now, I'm just going to ask you a question. What are you chasing? Are you chasing Jesus? Because if you're chasing Jesus, you won't be exhausted, you won't be stressed out. You won't be on a treadmill to nowhere. In fact, it's more like being on the walking path, right? Where you're walking, you're getting somewhere through the airport, but you're actually getting to a destination with him.

Heather Creekmore [00:21:43]:

You're not on a treadmill to nowhere. Are you looking for joy to come from personal fulfillment? From accomplishments? Friend, this is not where joy comes from. Accomplishments can mark what we've done or who we are. But joy blossoms when we rest in belonging to Jesus and what he's done for us. Okay? Our second lie for just over yonder, joy is that joy comes when you arrive. And I call this get there joy. Joy becomes a destination. If I can just get there.

Heather Creekmore [00:22:24]:

For some of you it's if I can just lose enter number here pounds. If I can just get my body right. You heard that in my story. If I can just get to the next stage with these kids. Oh, the baby days are hard. Oh, the toddler days are hard. Oh, the preschool days are hard. Oh, the middle school days are hard.

Heather Creekmore [00:22:44]:

If I can just get out of car seats. If I can just get out of diapers. If I can just get everyone like driving themselves to school. If I can just get everyone out of high school. If I can just get everyone off the payroll like friend, it does not end. If we believe that joy will come when we arrive somewhere in this earth. We are never going to find joy. Because that's not how life works.

Heather Creekmore [00:23:09]:

The only heaven we were created to experience will come in the next life, not in this one. So in this life it's just a series of not destinations. But it maybe like Buc EE's. Okay, like it's great to stop at Buc EE's. You feel a little elated when you stop at BUC EE's, which is kind of like this Texas. To call it a truck stop or rest stop is completely underestimating BUC EE's. But it's just this amazing magical place that has all kinds of drinks and snacks and a thousand gas pumps. And you can feel happy and joyful to some degree when you were there.

Heather Creekmore [00:23:47]:

But then it's really not joy, right? Because it's happiness. Because it goes away as soon as you pull out of Buc EE's and get back on highway. And so believing that joy comes when we arrive is really believing the Jesus plus gospel. Then I need Jesus plus this thing in my life. I need Jesus plus this next job. I need Jesus plus this next season. I need Jesus plus this next vacation. Or maybe it's as simple as every day you spend waiting to get to the place where at 9 o' clock you can sit on the couch with your ice cream.

Heather Creekmore [00:24:24]:

That is your destination. That is your arrival point every day. And friend, you miss joy all day long believing that it can only come at 9pm when you have your you time. Friend. That's not how we were designed to live. That's not the kind of joy that God created us for. And so when we live in this lie of joy comes when you arrive. There's another theme song that we use.

Heather Creekmore [00:24:49]:

It's a very famous theme song from the wizard of Oz. And it goes like this. Somewhere over the rainbow I'm not going to sing for you. We believe that joy is out there. It's just somewhere over the rainbow Way up high Bluebirds are singing but it's not here. It's there. And here's what I want to tell you about both the lie that joy comes when you arrive and the lie that when joy. Joy comes when you get up.

Heather Creekmore [00:25:15]:

Right. Right. Both of these lies are something called idolatry. And idolatry is something that in my own story, I didn't think I had a problem with. Right. I didn't have any idols in my house. I didn't look at the Buddha statue in the Chinese restaurant. There was nothing.

Heather Creekmore [00:25:37]:

I was bowing down to idolatry. Check. I don't have that problem. But here's what's true. I had made an idol out of marriage. I believed that once I got to that destination, once I had that title of Mrs. Oh, everything in my life would be different. That was the kind of salvation that I needed.

Heather Creekmore [00:26:02]:

Once I got my body a certain way, that was the salvation I needed. Once I got that title of mom, that was the salvation I needed. I believed the God in Jesus Christ, Jesus answer of salvation for later that I was saved through what Jesus did on the cross and that that would be super helpful when I died. But for here on earth, what I really needed to save me were some of these things that were part of my Jesus plus gospel. I really needed Jesus plus a better body, Jesus plus a husband and then a better husband. Jesus plus motherhood and then babies that eventually were potty trained and babies that eventually could walk themselves and babies that eventually could lock their own car seats and babies that eventually could go to school all day long. And babies, it just never comes. Because that's how idols work.

Heather Creekmore [00:26:54]:

Idols are a block between us and God. And whenever we believe anything on this earth could be responsible for our joy. Again, I'm not saying happiness. I'm saying joy. Whenever we believe there's something on this earth that we can create, chase, find, attain, that will bring us joy that only comes from Jesus, we have created an idol. We are looking to something that is not Jesus to save us. And it's going to be a roadblock every single time. And that's grace, really.

Heather Creekmore [00:27:27]:

God's not going to let that idol satisfy. God's not going to let that idol bring me joy. And that's what he showed me. I was in my mid-30s and my husband was listening to a sermon by a pastor named Tim Keller, and he was talking about modern day idolatry. And I heard the Lord whisper, heather, this is your problem. You've made your body an idol. And friend, that changed everything in my relationship with Jesus, right? I mean, I'd read my Bible before. I prayed before, but I was praying and reading my Bible with a block, with an idol standing in the way between me and really having faith.

Heather Creekmore [00:28:05]:

Trust and belief in Jesus. Oh, I mean, I said I had all of those things, but in reality, what I was looking for to bring me joy was not Jesus. It was weight loss. It was body change. It was a certain feeling I was supposed to get from my husband. It was a certain feeling I was supposed to get from being a mom. And that's why idols are so dangerous. Idols are what block our joy.

Heather Creekmore [00:28:32]:

And so right now, I'm just gonna ask you to pause just for a moment. In what ways have you tried to chase joy through arrival? In what ways have you tried to chase joy through getting it? All right, can you name any right now, friend? These could be idols in your life. They are what. What might be blocking your joy? And the great news is, there's a cure for this, right? If this is just like normal girl stuff, like, oh, every woman struggles with this. There's no cure. But we can't recognize the idols that we've constructed in our lives. There is a cure, and the cure is Jesus. First, John 1:9 says, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, There is a cure.

Heather Creekmore [00:29:22]:

So think through how have I tried to chase joy through arrival? How have I tried to chase through joy through getting right? What have I believed would save me here on this earth? And whatever those answers are, those things are your idols. And you have the opportunity today to confess them. And that's a turning point. Our repentance, our confession, the forgiveness we received from Christ is a turning point that allows us to truly reconnect with him and experience his joy. You see, going back to the idol of arrival, like joy, joy is not a place you arrive, right? I mean, we will arrive there someday in the next life in heaven. But joy, for now, isn't arrival. It's the way we walk with Jesus. Okay? The third and final lie is joy comes when you get positive.

Heather Creekmore [00:30:14]:

I call this Jedi mind trick joy. But this one's tricky, right? Because there's nothing wrong with being more of an optimist, right? Of Thinking things are going to work out of believing the best, right? Some of that's biblical even. But there's a big difference between positive thinking and faith saturated trust. And I think sometimes, especially in our culture where man, the New age movement is exploding, a lot of these new age mantras sound really close to scripture. They sound good. You could press like on them and it may have been posted by a witch. Just saying. True story.

Heather Creekmore [00:30:59]:

Positive thinking is different than faith saturated trust. You see, positive thinking confuses the hope we have in and through Christ, only with optimism, with just thinking good thoughts. Positive thinking is really about self confidence versus God confidence. Because positive thinking, if that's what's going to work for me, then I am reliant on myself to train my brain to think good thoughts. And that's not having confidence that God is sovereign and has a good plan and is in charge. That's me having confidence in the fact that maybe I can make things better by thinking good thoughts to get them. Positive thinking minimizes the reality of suffering, right? Oh man, Jesus said, in this world you will have trouble. There is suffering that we will all have to endure.

Heather Creekmore [00:31:52]:

Unfortunately, just as part of living in this broken, fallen world. And to be like, nope, everything's great, Everything's great, Everything's great. All through your trials. Man is to deny the pain and the hard and the hurt. Jesus doesn't ask us to deny them. He asks us to bring it to him. He wants to be our comforter. He wants to walk with us through our suffering.

Heather Creekmore [00:32:17]:

He doesn't want us to deny or minimize it. Positive thinking puts a burden on the believer to sustain their joy just by keeping a certain mindset. And friend, it's never been our responsibility to sustain our joy, right? Our joy is found in Jesus. He is the only one who can sustain it. And the final thought here is the Bible teaches us that joy is a fruit of the spirit. Joy is not a technique. It's not a Jedi mind trick. It's a fruit that blooms, blossoms and develops in us as we are rooted and grounded in Him.

Heather Creekmore [00:32:55]:

So joy comes when you get positive. I think that has a theme song too. It's an old song. It goes, you've got to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, latch on to the affirmative. Don't mess with Mr. In between. Perhaps you've heard that song and that song is all about just focus on what's good, forget about what's bad. And as we've already discussed, friend, I don't think that's what's required of Us as believers, true joy doesn't deny pain.

Heather Creekmore [00:33:25]:

It at lasts our pain. So while positive thinking says, change your thoughts and you'll feel better, true joy says you are held even when your thoughts fall apart. I think the biggest struggle we have in chasing just over yonder joy is that we tend to confuse the good gifts of God with God the good gift giver. In fact, that's what all of our idols are. Our idols are these good gifts of God that we put in a wrong place. Right? Our marriages are good. If you're a mom, that's good. If you want to pursue a health goal, there's nothing wrong with that could be good.

Heather Creekmore [00:34:11]:

But the problem is when we take these good things, these good gifts from him, like our bodies, which are good gifts to steward, and we put them in a place where we believe they will bring us the joy that only he does, that's when we create an idol. Here's a illustration to kind of help drive this point home. There once was a woman who really wanted to be engaged. She could not wait to be engaged. It was going to be so fabulous when she was engaged because she was going to have the ring and be able to plan the wedding. And it was just, oh, it's going to be wonderful. So finally the day comes. Her lovely, lovely boyfriend buys her a beautiful ring.

Heather Creekmore [00:34:54]:

He proposes just the right way, and she gets that ring. She says yes. And she can't stop staring at the ring ring. In fact, she doesn't even look up at the boyfriend. She just says, yes, thank you, I'm engaged. I'm so happy. I'm finally engaged. And she starts obsessing over the ring.

Heather Creekmore [00:35:15]:

She sits around her home staring at the ring. She polishes the ring. She's talking to all of her friends about the ring. She can't take calls from her now fiance because she's too busy making sure that her ring is just perfect. She's taking pictures of the ring, taking videos of the ring for Instagram. Instagram boyfriend, fiance stops by. Hey, can we go do something? Sorry, I don't have time. I need to think more about my ring and focus more on my ring.

Heather Creekmore [00:35:47]:

I mean, this is ridiculous, right? And yet, and yet, friend, do we do this with God when he gives us a good gift? Do we obsess? Focus on. Put all of our hopes and dreams and energy into the gift instead of acknowledging the giver. Oh, I've done it. Have you done it too? You see, the truth is true, Joy. It's not far away. It's as close as the giver is to us. It's just true joy can't be spelled. Just over yonder.

Heather Creekmore [00:36:24]:

True joy is found in our closeness to Jesus and that block to our joy. What blocks our joy is anything we've chased, pursued, or trusted in that isn't him. And so how do we find true joy? Well, I've got three A's for you. We find true joy through aligning, abiding, and anchoring. True joy comes when you align, abide, and anchor. And if we want to be unblocked from feeling joy, if we want that box of joy that we've been trying to unlock by getting it, all right, if we want that to unlock for you, us, then these are the three things we must focus on. Align, abide, and anchor. So let's start with align.

Heather Creekmore [00:37:04]:

We have to align with the giver. Joy comes when we order our lives rightly, when we're not placing the gift above the giver. And so my question for you today is, what has first place in your life? You know, I like to talk about the treasure principle from the book of Matthew, where Jesus says, you know where your heart is. Excuse me, where your money is, your heart will be also. Or where your treasure is, your heart will be also. And I think this applies to all the different idols we can create in our lives. Right. Whatever you make, your treasure is where your heart will be.

Heather Creekmore [00:37:45]:

And so if your treasure isn't Jesus, if your treasure is in your relationship, in your role as a mom, in your job at work, in your title, at work, in your bank account, in your body and the way you look, if these things have become your treasure and you don't feel joy, that's why you've got the wrong treasure. And if you're wondering, well, how do I know if something's become my treasure? I mean, is there a test for that? There is a test for that. I'm so glad you asked. The test is this. Look at your bank account and look at your time. And when I say time, I don't just mean, like blocked time on your calendar. I mean, what do you spend time thinking about? There's a great quote by Sir Thomas Chalmers. I think it is.

Heather Creekmore [00:38:31]:

And it says, what you think about in your solitude is your religion. I'm going to say it one more time. What you think about in your solitude when you're alone, that's your true religion. So, friend, if you're spending all your time thinking about your body, if you're spending all your time thinking about the fact that you wish your marriage was better or that you're not married. Spend all your time thinking about your kids and all their problems and what they're doing and how they could be better and how their accomplishments are making you feel happy. Friend, these things are not sufficient treasures. Right? They will not bring you joy. They'll bring you moments of happiness, but they will not bring you joy.

Heather Creekmore [00:39:09]:

Jesus is the joy. He must be your treasure. We want to align. We can look at John 15:10 through 11 for some more clues about what Jesus means about aligning. It reads like this. If you keep my commandments, which one? All of them, friend. Not the ones you choose to keep. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love.

Heather Creekmore [00:39:41]:

These things I have spoken to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full. Joy comes from living how God asks us to live. And that means no idols. It also means loving him, loving others, and a host of other commandments. It's not a long list, friends. In fact, I think most of us make longer lists of what we need for our own joy and happiness than Jesus ever did. But we must keep his commands. We must do and live as he asks us to do and live.

Heather Creekmore [00:40:16]:

And then we will align with him and find joy. The second way to find joy is abide. We abide with the giver. Psalm 16:11 says, in your presence there is fullness of joy. Joy comes not from getting the thing, doing the thing, arriving at the thing. Joy comes from closeness to God. Instead of focusing on where you're going, focus on who is with you. That's good news.

Heather Creekmore [00:40:45]:

Going into something hard, going into something great. Who is with you? Abide with him. The final A is anchor. Anchor yourself to the Giver. We rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Romans 5:2 Biblical joy is sustained by an eternal perspective. It's not the power of positivity. It's knowing that even if everything in this life kind of sucks now or for a long time, man, this isn't my final hope.

Heather Creekmore [00:41:22]:

This isn't the end game. I have eternity with Jesus. This life is just a blip. And so I don't have to Jedi mind trick my way into finding joy. I can just lean into him and rest in his truth that he's got me. He's never going to leave me or forsake me. And even if things are hard, he is still there. Friend, we must believe that we cannot find true Joy outside of Jesus, it's just not possible.

Heather Creekmore [00:41:54]:

Yep, we can find some happiness. Yep, we can find some personal fulfillment. But those things are always subject to change, and true joy is not. So we talked about spelling joy wrong, that real joy is not spelled J O Y just over yonder. How is true joy spelled? Well, there's a number of options here. Okay. I grew up singing a song in Sunday school called Jesus and Others and you what a wonderful way to spell joy. Which is a great way to spell joy.

Heather Creekmore [00:42:25]:

Right? Matthew tells us that, like these are the two great commands. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind. Love your neighbor as yourself. Right? Jesus, others, you. That's a great way to spell joy. Joy or Jesus over you? What do I want? No, what does Jesus want? That's a great way to spell joy. But I think the best way to spell joy is Jesus. Oh yeah, okay, that one might be a little corny, I get it.

Heather Creekmore [00:42:48]:

But he must increase so I can decrease is what John 3:30 says. Right? If I make much of him, instead of much of his gifts, instead of much of my plans, instead of much of myself, that is the sure fire way that I will find joy. Tim Keller puts it like this. If we truly believe in the Trinity, if we believe that God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, if we believe that they are who they say they are, then here's the result. Your absolute highest purpose, your meaning, and the only way you'll ever be happy is if you are glorifying God above all other things. We live for God's glory. Joy and delight are the natural byproduct. I don't have to live to arrive.

Heather Creekmore [00:43:45]:

I don't have to live to get it all right. I don't have to. Just be positive, friend. He is where the joy and delight are found. And that's good news because it takes the pressure off. It's all up to Him. And I just have to abide, align and anchor. Friend, I hope this has encouraged you today.

Heather Creekmore [00:44:11]:

I hope if you've struggled like I have to find joy, that you will focus on those three as today pause and think about what might be blocking your joy. In what ways are you chasing, pursuing joy that that aren't just pursuing Jesus. Confess those to him. He will be faithful to forgive them and then rest in his word and his truth that he's faithful, he's got you, and that he is where the joy is found. Hey, thanks for listening today. I hope something today has helped you stop comparing and start living. Bye Bye. The compare to podcast is pretty proud to be part of the Life Audio Podcast network for my great Christian podcasts.

Heather Creekmore [00:44:53]:

I hope you go to lifeaudio.com.