Hey, listeners. You’ve found me, your host, Wanda Thibodeaux, and you’re listening to Faithful on the Clock, the podcast for Christian professionals where every phone gets charged to get your faith and work aligned. Today, we’re talking about joy — how it’s different than general positivity, and why it’s arguably the most important job skill you can bring to the table. Let’s jump in.

So, today, I wanna talk about something that doesn’t appear on a lot of resumes. If you were gonna create one of those, you’d probably list things like communication, strategic thinking, or maybe even adaptability. Those are all valuable. But I want to argue that joy is one of the most powerful professional skills we can develop because it creates a lot of the other qualities we look for by default.

But before I go any further, let me just define what I mean, because I wanna be really clear here and I don’t want us to mix these two concepts the way we often have a tendency to do. I’m not talking about general positivity, which often becomes toxic. So, positivity is really a proactive mindset. We learn it intentionally. And it often focuses on resilience and gratitude. It’s very much focused on how we react or what we choose to do in the moment. But joy is a deeply lasting, visceral state of emotion you encounter when your spirit connects to something meaningful. It’s not something you can force, but we can create an intentional space for it to bubble up inside us automatically.

So, really quickly, let me just break this down a little bit with a few examples so you can see how this actually gets applied. So, let’s just look at truth. If we’re being intentionally positive, what often happens is, we stop seeing the whole truth. We start looking at only what we want to see, only the outcomes we want. And in that mindset, we start saying things like, “It’ll be fine. It’ll all work out. All things work together for those who love God.” This is that brush-it-under-the-rug behavior that happens where we start avoiding conflict or sugarcoating things. But when we’re joyful, we don’t say everything is fine. We say, “Everything is not fine, but God is still present.” And so, joy isn’t afraid of the whole truth. It can name problems accurately without getting anxious. Now, within this, positivity is going to get defensive of anything that threatens our identity or what we want. It’s going to avoid whatever makes us feel bad, including conflict. But joy creates curiosity and courage. It’s always asking, even during hard times, “What’s actually happening,” “Tell me more,” or “What can I learn?” It’s bold and welcomes the feedback because that’s necessary to understand what the whole truth really is and to develop wisdom from it. And because joy can hold the whole truth, it doesn’t wear masks or try to perform perfection with smiles and energy as KPIs. If you’re tired or sad, you can say that, and it doesn’t necessarily become, I’m entirely defeated. And if we focus on the fact God has the whole truth already, then it lets you be flexible in the sense of, you know, we don’t always know what outcomes are best for us. And sometimes, we have to let go of the outcome we were hoping for so that God can give us a different outcome that’s actually going to let us live out our purpose.

Then, secondly, positivity can be a little wobbly. Like, it’s easy to be positive when things are going great. But then, when layoffs or criticism or other real problems hit, then it can collapse, because remember, it’s a mindset, and when there’s a problem, our negativity bias kicks in, and our thoughts tend to start to go down these rabbit holes of what might happen, right? Because we’re all just trying to keep ourselves safe and minimize potential risks. But joy has nothing to do with the circumstances. It has to do with the connection you have to what’s meaningful, and for us as Christians, foundationally, that’s our connection to God and to Jesus. We can walk into the fire like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. We can praise God having lost everything like Job. And so, because joy isn’t tied to what’s going on or outcomes, we can be resilient and reliable.

We can also look at positivity and joy through the lens of generosity. A lot of people are positive, but they actually work really hard to engineer the certainty that’s gonna get the good outcome. Under the surface, they still want to control everything. So, this is where people might say, “Of course I’ll get x, y, or z — if I get the right degree, network enough, and so on.” And so, what happens is, people start looking out for number one to protect the outcome. They don’t share resources. They don’t mentor. They just start hoarding. But joy doesn’t operate on the fear that’s actually underneath all that engineering or control. It doesn’t believe there’s a scarcity problem and instead believes there’s room for everybody to succeed.

Taking all of that into account, what I hope you’ll see is that joy is a giant stabilizer. It’s what allows us to really face and name problems accurately, be consistent when circumstances aren’t predictable, you know, walk into uncertainty when we have to, and really make space and time for people. It helps us to look for those opportunities to support and celebrate other people, and at the same time, it gives us a path to lean into who we really are and not just paint a picture we want others to like. Right? We can be honest and empathetic. And really importantly, joy increases discernment. It’s not protecting our ego. And so, there’s bandwidth to notice nuance, integrate information that’s coming in, and answer well instead of just reacting. Our decisions become more ethical and practically solid because we’re considering the whole truth that we’re in. There’s really no area of leadership or creative work where these points aren’t a practical advantage.

But of course, you know, we get to this point and the question naturally is, “Well, OK, how can I be more genuinely joyful?” And the first thing I’ll say to that is, if you haven’t heard Episode 141, go listen to that. That episode looks at joy from the standpoint of neurology. And in that episode, I encourage everybody to aim for joy by a thousand jolts. And all that means is that you are constantly looking for small, good things that can help you remember Who God is and connect to Him. Maybe for some of you that’s petting the dog or just seeing some wildflowers on a walk. But the idea is, all of those tiny moments are producing the electrical activity or little jolts that actually build new pathways in your brain. And those new pathways are gonna let you have an alternative to your old ways of thinking, and they’re gonna build the infrastructure your brain needs for you to chemically access feeling good. So, that’s the very grounded, scientific, or biological way to approach it. But it’s biblically grounded, as well. It’s basically what Paul was getting at in Philippians 4:8 when he tells us to be intentional about considering what’s good.

But if that’s seeking God experientially through small things we encounter through our life, we also can increase our joy by seeking Him intellectually. And that’s where we can use studying the Word. Because what happens when we read Scripture is, we gain more and more evidence about His character and miracles. And experiences, they give us evidence, too, don’t get me wrong. But Scripture gives us thousands of years of evidence. It delivers a more cohesive narrative. And sorting out what we don’t get, getting that huge database or history of evidence, it provides the clarity we need to see Him as trustworthy. And when we see Him as trustworthy, we feel safe enough to build a relationship with Him and connect to the meaning that’s central to joy.

But I also want to encourage you, even as you study, to pray. Because prayer is a beautiful activity in that it’s both emotional and cognitive. We’re feeling through this one-on-one conversation with God, maybe we’re bringing Him some really tough, complicated stuff. But we’re also trying to think and get answers and information, to get all the personal bonus lessons that aren’t in the Bible, that God might have just for us so we can be better and serve.

But through all three of these recommendations — remember, we’ve got joy by a thousand jolts or looking for good things, getting into the Word, and prayer — the keys really are consistency and persistence. Real connection doesn’t happen overnight. I mean, even when you’ve got people who say, “Oh, man, I just felt that spark. It was love at first sight,” or “I just knew we were instant soul mates,” even then, you’re still gonna be learning about that person and deepening that connection over time. And I point that out because our world really does condition us to be impatient, you know, to want the instant gratification. But especially if we haven’t known God or have been separated from Him, we tend to want to rush all the connection work. We think, “Oh, well, I’ve been praying, I’m trying to look for what’s lovely, but I don’t feel any better.” And then it’s like, ok, yeah, but you’re only a week into this. And what we have to understand is that our connection, that’s something we will be building our entire lives. We learn about God until the day we day, and even in the resurrection He’s still got things He’s gonna reveal to us. And what that means is that joy is often something that only deepens and matures over time. That’s normal, and in fact, I think we have to step into it gradually because otherwise the joy of God would just completely overwhelm us. We wouldn’t be able to process it or function. And the work is to trust that God is gonna give us the degree of connection and joy that’s right for where we are. This is what it actually looks like when we say God is going to sustain me. It doesn’t mean we get everything all the time. It means He has carefully calculated and paced and is gonna deliver the joy that’s exactly appropriate at exactly the right time.

So, to close out, let’s just take a moment to pray together.

Lord, a lot of things in life can try to steal our joy, and the Devil is pretty active in using those to maximize chaos and pain around us. And most of us, God, we know the office can do that. It can be a place that steals our joy. And so, Lord, help us develop the habits of seeking good things, of praying and getting into your Word, because all of that reconnects us to you so we can get that joy back. And when we have that joy, help us to share it freely so we can bring light to the people who still need You. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.

So, everybody, I just want to end by saying, don’t forget to love on each other in this quest for joy. We get so much meaning out of the connection we have to God, but that connection gets deeper every time we connect to another human being. For our next episode, we’re going to chat about how to discern what offers or requests God might want you to take and which ones He might want you to leave on the table. I’ll see you for that in two weeks, listeners. Be blessed.