Still Waiting to Feel Happy? How to Find Joy Right Where You Are with God

Are we allowing the things that have not yet happened?

Are we allowing the things that we expected to have happened now or that we hoped for?

Are we letting those things hold us back from finding the abundant life, life in Christ?

Are we letting our discontentment or our what if, or when this happens?

Are we letting that keep us from the fruit of the Spirit, experiencing peace and joy and all the other fruit of the Spirit?

So that's what we're going to dig in today.

We're going to look at a couple scriptures and we're going to talk about this.

Because if we're being honest, most of us have walked through this feeling of disappointment or we're waiting on God and we just allow it to pull us down.

Or we keep thinking, when I get the raise, when I get the other job, when this stage of my parenting is over, we think on the other side of our circumstances, things are going to be better.

Instead of understanding it's right now, in our circumstances that we can still have an abundant life in Christ.

Welcome to Faith Fueled Living, the podcast that equips you to live well spiritually, emotionally, physically and purposefully.

Each week we'll dive into conversations and biblical truths to help you strengthen your faith, pursue meaningful work, hear for your whole self, and live aligned with what matters most.

So I've shared with you all that one of the daily, I guess, devotionals that I'm, I'm reading right now is called Awaken by Priscilla Shrier.

And I think I'm on, let me just tell you, I am on day 53 or so right now, but she had a.

On day 38.

Let me just check there.

Yeah, day 38, it was called who Stole My Rhino?

But what was.

It was a great devotional.

But what was interesting about it is she's talking about, I think it was friends of hers that went on a safari, right?

They've been waiting, I think for years to go on the safari.

And I guess there's like this list, I forget what it's called now, but a list of like seeing all the top big game animals, right?

Like when you go on safari in the, in the jeeps and whatnot.

And so her friends had, I think it was a husband and wife, but maybe their kids were there too.

Her friends had seen all of the animals in the couple days safari that they had, except for the rhino.

But it, it literally ruined at that moment on that last day.

It was ruining the last day of the trip for the husband because he was so focused on being able to check the box of Like I went there, I may never do a safari again and I haven't seen the last animal.

So he was so focused on the.

When I see the rhino, I will have arrived, right?

Like my safari will have been worth it.

But later, after they got back from the trip and there's some reflection and other things that happened, the husband realized, like his day was, I don't want to say ruined, but he had put a damper on his day and he missed out on all the other joy and experiences of that day.

Right.

He tainted the day because of his expectation.

He tainted the day because he felt like if he didn't see the rhino, it was like not having arrived.

Right.

Of hitting all the big game animals.

Well, a lot of us do that in our own lives and we often don't even realize it while we're going through it.

And so I want to share some things with you about this that I've read from other people and then some of my perspective.

And so the first thing is from that devotional I just told you about from that day 38, this is what Priscilla Schreier says.

I'm sorry, wait, is it?

Yes, Shrier.

She says, this is what discontentment always does.

It dampens our delight in things we already have to the bounty that currently surrounds us.

And so that's the thing.

Are we, where in our lives are we allowing an expectation or a discontentment or a.

When this happens, where in our life is that going on?

Where it's causing us to not delight in what we've already been given, like what's already there in front of us, all the blessings we already have.

And sometimes we let it be the glasses that we see the world through or our life through our circumstances.

Right.

Like in other words, you know, it's kind of the.

We have rose colored glasses on or glasses that don't let us see the reality of our actual lives.

And all the good that's already there, all the good that God's already put right in front of us.

And she says, what's the one thing, the one thing that is eluding your grasp and consuming your attention, diverting it away from the abundance and blessing all around you?

I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

Right?

And so it's with that relationship and the intimacy with Christ that we have that abundant life, that we have the fruit of the spirit.

And so it's not in the absence of trials or suffering, right?

It's being in the presence of the supernatural, being in the presence of Christ.

And.

And so this is the thing.

We have to understand that our circumstances, regardless of what they are, they may be hard.

We may be walking through something difficult.

We may be walking through a loss or a diagnosis or a difficult person in our lives.

We may be walking through a marital strain.

But we're talking about, how do we.

Even in any of the circumstances we're walking through, how do we change, right?

How do we have that abundant life internally, right?

So that no matter what we're walking through, we can still have peace and we can still have joy.

In your right hand there are pleasures forever.

And here's the thing.

And she goes on to say, the devil wants to steal our peace and joy, thinking we can't have these things until our circumstances change.

But that's not true.

Priscilla goes on to say, abundant life is something the spirit enables you to have when all else is wrong, disheveled, or uneasy around you.

In other words, we can still have all of those things, even in the midst of our waiting, even in the midst of our discontentment.

And so I thought this was really good.

I was reading something by Cody Jefferson and.

And he's talking about David in Psalm 13, but he's basically talking about how he's calling out.

David's calling out and saying, like, you know, multiple statements.

But he's like, you know, how long will you forget me?

He's talking to God, you know, calling out to God, how long must I wrestle with this?

Like, how long will you be silent?

Right?

He's saying these things.

But then he kind of ends.

There's two different psalms that are referenced, but he ends with, I will sing to the Lord, for he has been good to me.

And what Cody Jefferson explains is, even though David first was calling out, right?

Like, where are you, Lord?

Where are you in my waiting?

Where are you in my pain?

Where are you in my difficult circumstances?

But then he had a declaration of faith.

It wasn't questioning God, it was that God, even in and through all these things.

Cody goes on to explain that David reached backward in memory to anchor forward in mystery.

In other words, I will sing to the Lord, for he has been good to me.

So while David was walking through many things, I think he was.

They were trying to find him.

He was in the cave, like, there was a lot going on.

But he still says after all of that, calling out that he will sing to the Lord, for he has been good to me, right?

So that is what he means by David reaching back in his memory.

This is why we're told, and I've talked about this before, we need to write down what we're asking God for and we need to then go back and write down when the, the prayer was answered, when the blessing happened.

We also, that's why we want to write down regularly what is God doing in our lives?

Where has he been faithful?

Where has he kept his promises?

Where has he given us blessing?

Because without writing those things down, it's real easy to get caught up in our day to day difficulties instead of looking at how faithful God is in our lives, how he's already worked in our lives and how he's still working today in our lives and he's still working today for our future.

But if we don't remember, we'll miss it and we'll get caught in the circumstance and we'll feel discontentment or discouragement or we'll feel like God, where are you?

Why have you left me?

And so Cody Jefferson goes on to say, what if the deepest level of trust isn't asking God to move, but trusting that he already is even when we can't trace it, right?

So yes, we want to trace God's prayers when they're answered and his blessings.

But he means when, when we can't see God moving, when God feels silent, we have to remember that God is moving and that God does what he says he'll do.

But we also have to remember that we may not see our circumstances change right now.

And we can't always know how God or when God's going to move, but that we can trust God, that He is doing the incredible right he is doing, he is working on our behalf.

But even when we can't see it, and we may never understand right, the path, but basically when we're going through these seasons or these things, he explains that we're becoming right, we are being built by God in the quiet.

So when we don't see movement from God, sometimes it's because God is changing us, not always our circumstances.

And it might be easier and we might want our circumstances to change, but that is often not how God works, right?

It is when we continue to give him praise, we give him thanks, we continue to build our relationship, right?

Our personal relationship with Jesus, that intimacy that is when that supernatural fruit of the Spirit is poured in or is within us and poured out into our lives.

And so Cody goes on to say, could this season be less about answers and more about becoming the kind of man, or I'd say man or woman, who doesn't need them to remain faithful.

So when we feel right, like the.

The things that Priscilla talked about where we feel discontent because our trials and tribulations are right in front of us, we have to remember to trust God.

We have to remember to sit with unanswered or sit in the habit not having answers to everything, which we usually don't.

Isn't that true?

And then we have to remain faithful, right?

And that's actually when it's time to probably hunker down, right?

Find more silence, find more prayer time, get in the word more.

So the further we feel from God because we can't hear him or we can't see him moving with our own eyes, right?

Our human eyes, that's when it's time to actually kind of, you know, work more, to get quiet, to settle ourselves.

In Philippians 4:11, it also reminds us, I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.

And that's the question.

Are we allowing ourselves to be content to be faithful, to trust God even when we don't know what.

Where he's taking us or how he's moving?

And Priscilla goes on to say, don't let missing things not yet happened keep you from enjoying and celebrating and soaking up all you have today.

How good is that?

And the last thing she says I want to share is contentment comes from valuing what you've been given, not venting over what's been withheld.

I mean, come on, tell me that you can't relate to that.

I'm going to say it again.

Contentment comes from valuing what you've been given, not from bending over what's been withheld.

Here's the thing.

Sometimes we want more.

We ask for more.

And I don't just mean materialistic things.

I mean, obviously sometimes we do ask for that, right?

Like maybe we.

We've really been.

Maybe our heart's been longing for a different home.

Or maybe our car just keeps breaking down, like whatever it is.

But most of the time the things we're.

We're wanting, right, are maybe we want to be healed.

Maybe our child, we.

We need a miracle for our child.

Like, it could be so many things.

It could be small things, it could be big things.

It can just be things that are weighing on our spirit.

But once again, it's this.

How can we be grateful?

How can we enjoy what we already have?

And how can we also continue to praise God and thank him for what we have what he's already done in our lives.

Because when we stay in that posture, right, that's why two of the things it specifically tells us, right, in the Bible is to give God praise and thanks.

Those are two things for us to do.

And yes, it's for him, but it's also for us.

Because when we stay in that posture, we appreciate what we already have and we are focused on what we have instead of what we don't have, or where we struggle right in our humanness with like, the one day, or I'll feel happier or I'll feel accomplished or, you know, whatever, when I get this thing or when this thing happens in my life, this.

There's nothing wrong with wanting something else.

The issue is that we don't want it to consume us and we don't want to lose sight of what we already have.

Right?

All the blessings.

And so I get that this can be hard and it's easy to focus on.

You know, like, I expected that I'd be married already.

If you're somebody that's not found, you know, significant other.

Or maybe you wanted a child and that hasn't happened for you or for you yet.

Maybe you're struggling with a sick, aging parent and you didn't expect that your evenings and weekends would be spent caring for them, even though you love them and you would do it.

So we just have to once again get our posture back so that we remember what God promises us.

And we also remember that we have to keep coming back to him and we have to still sing to the Lord, if you will.

We still have to give him praise and thanks even when we don't feel like we know how he's moving or we have a hope for something more in our lives because we want to keep that hope, but we don't want that the thing hasn't arrived yet to keep us from being hopeful for what God is doing now, what he's already done, and for how he's working for a future for us that's better than we could imagine, even if it doesn't look like the future that we hoped we'd have.

So I just wanted to show this today because I think it's so easy to miss an abundant life, right?

Abundant life in Christ because of the things that I sort of talked about and outlined today.

So how do we.

How do we have that abundant life, which is also.

It's basically considered the eternal life.

It's now it's knowing the Father and the Son.

It's by being in the Spirit Right.

And then it's overflowing with a deep, abiding joy, regardless of the circumstances and peace beyond our understanding.

And it's about understanding that we have a purpose and experience the fruit of the Spirit.

And we do all of that through getting in the Word and through having a relationship.

Right.

And getting daily in God's presence.

And so I would just encourage you, you know, think about these questions, write down the ones that really spoke to you, the things to.

To reflect on, to ask yourself.

And a great place to start is you can grab my Joy Rising worksheet.

It's@kristinfitch.com Go to my workbooks page.

And it's just a daily sheet.

It's just really easy.

There's seven sheets, so you can just print them out for the week and they just ask you three questions.

But it's basically allowing you to track the couple things, like writing down a couple things you're grateful for each day.

So give God that praise.

Like God, I am so thankful I'm grateful for these things.

And then it has you notice the joy in your life, right?

Like the fruit of the Spirit type of joy, you know, that deep joy that bubbles forth because of your connection to Christ.

But noticing those things and then writing them down is going to keep you in that posture.

And then the third thing question or prompt that asks you on the sheet is where did you see God move in your life today?

Or where did you feel or notice the presence of God right in your day?

Because once again, when we focus on these things, instead of our disappointment in the moment or in the day or something didn't go how we wanted, or we're not where we wanted to be yet, or we're struggling through something, yes, those things can be true.

But we can also take the time to be aware of what we already have.

And even in the midst of hard things, where was there something good?

For instance, I have.

There's been a lot of loss recently in the last year in our lives.

My dad passed away.

Some friends of ours have passed.

Earlier this year, one of my nieces passed away, and then one of my friends moms just passed.

And so there's a lot of grief around us right now, right?

All of us processing it in different ways and people at different levels of closeness.

But walking through that, you can't take away that grief and that loss for each of us going through it at different times and we're in different seasons of that.

But in the midst of that, beautiful things are still blooming, right?

Like the Lovely note the person that goes out of their way to send you a card, the person that thought of you and just did something kind for you, even though you didn't know what you needed.

Right.

Walking through that.

And so that's what I'm talking about is I've talked to so many people that have walked through their own grief, lost spouses, different things, and they said yes, in the moment, your, you know, grief is, feels all consuming for some of the time as you, at least as it's especially new.

And of course you're going to continue to feel a loss for that person.

But as they looked back, there were so many things that people did, such kindnesses, such blessings in the midst of those losses, or the things they were walking through that God absolutely orchestrated.

Right?

Or these people felt prompted to go and just show the person love and show them that they're here for them and that they see them even though they're they're going through this difficult thing.

So this is the kind of thing we're talking about.

So anyways, go grab my free worksheet or workbook, whatever you want to call it, at kristenvitch.com and go to the workbooks page and it's near the top.

Joy rising.

So till next time, I hope you have a wonderful day and I hope today's episode just gets you noticing and reflecting on what is let me see, I said this earlier.

What's the thing, right?

Or the things that are keeping you from actually experiencing delight in the things that are already here in front of you now, right?

Like what's diverting you away or your attention away and noticing the abundance and blessing that's all around you right now.

And so I will talk to you next episode.

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