Cultivating Joy

Sharifa >> Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Beyond Ordinary Women. I am your host for today, Sharifa Stevens and I have the distinct pleasure of talking with Nika Spaulding today. Let me tell you a little bit about Nika. Nika is a proud graduate of both the University of Oklahoma and Dallas Theological Seminary, where she has a Master of Theology.

She’s currently working on her Doctor of Ministry at Northern Seminary. God gave her the privilege of planting a church in Oak Cliff, Texas, called St Jude Oak Cliff, where she is Resident Theologian. And when she’s not cheering on her Sooners, playing with her cat, Clive, who we might see later, or enjoying a good meal with her friends, she’s probably sneaking off to Oklahoma to snuggle with her favorite humans, her nieces and nephew.

Nika, thank you for joining us today.

Nika >> Oh, I’m excited to be here. It’s good to see you, friend.

Sharifa >> Good to see you, too. And I’m really excited about the subject for today, which is Cultivating Joy.

Nika >> Yeah. A big topic.

Sharifa >> Right. It is! So let’s get into it.

Nika >> Yeah. Love it. It’s interesting. Before we started recording, you and I were talking about how this topic of joy seems to be coming up in our individual lives. And then, of course, we’re talking about here. And really, I would argue starting in 2020, because of both global tragedy and then just tragedy in my own personal life, I was very acquainted with the idea of lament and grief and all of that.

And it’s been a really sweet gift to come up a little bit and have the Lord drop this idea, this massive, huge idea of joy in front of me. And so it’s a topic that I’ve talked about in both teaching opportunities as well as something I’m trying to cultivate on my current staff team at my church, and then also just in my own personal life.

And so it’s a small, tiny, big, huge topic that we get to try to talk about today.

Sharifa >> Absolutely. And I hope later you can touch on this more, but it seems like there’s always accompanied with joy, there’s a sense of grief.

Nika >> Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

Sharifa >> Let’s just let’s get into it. What is joy and can it be recognized in us and God, is it written all over our face?

Nika >> Yeah, it tends to be. One of the ways that I was reintroduced to the idea of Joy was I was talking to a friend about wanting to really come up with really good questions as part of a discipleship program. So my idea was, hey, I’d love to partner people together, have them ask really important questions about God, about themselves, about their neighbor, and she said to me, Oh, well, then you have to read this book, The Other Half of Church.

And Sharifa, you and I have been in ministry context long enough, typically when people name things that other half or half the church, it usually is about women. And so I thought, well, that’s kind of, Okay. But this woman that I was talking to is actually fascinated by the brain. So I shouldn’t have been surprised to find out that the book is actually about brain research and the role that joy and loving attachment play in the discipleship process.

And so what I love about this is they really beautifully define joy, but they also experientially help you. And so, for example, this is what I tell people when they say, what is joy? I say, Okay, just give me a second to be a little woo woo here, give me a second. Just grant me this moment, especially if we’re in the public sphere or somewhere where they’re not, you know?

And I say to them, I want you to close your eyes and I want you to take a couple of deep breaths just to kind of settle where you’re at. And I want you to think of a person who you deeply love and they deeply love you, someone that when you see them, you see delight on their face. They’re happy to see you and you’re happy to see them. And I want you to just take a moment and I want you to really think about that moment. And then I want you to take note of what happens to your body, what happens to your mind, what happens to like what is physically happening to you?

And in our better moments, people are able to imagine often that for me, I always think of my nieces and nephews, and I, in fact, have this like video of I visited them not too long ago, and we didn’t tell them I was coming. And they’re like and I’m like, and I’ve played this video for people to go, this is what Joy maybe at the loudest volume looks like in my life, but it’s not always that loud. And as people open their eyes back up, I say to them that what you’re feeling is approximating that feeling of joy as we experience it.

And so the researchers give this exercise and then they say, Okay, when we looked across the board at joy in a person’s life, there were kind of three big ideas that they came up with. One is it’s primarily joy is transmitted through the face, which is interesting because they say even though we have Zoom, which we’re doing this right now, they would say, you know, it really needs to be a little bit of life on life but Zoom is a good alternative. But it’s primarily transmitted through the face.

You express joy through your face, especially the eyes. And people talk about that, like the eyes give things away. You know, if you’ve ever been watching somebody, you see their eyes light up, even if there’s no smile or you see a smile, but their eyes don’t light up and say, wow, maybe not, right?

Yeah. So they talk about it being transmitted through the face and then they say it’s also relational. That you can have fun by yourself, you can have hobbies, you can have happiness, you can play, there’s sort of these ideas that you can have solo. But joy in all of their research is a relational thing. That it happens in the context between two people or between people and God.

Sharifa >> Do you think there was joy in existence when the first man was created, but before the first woman?

Nika >> I think the joy that he would have experienced would have had to have been with him and the Triune God. But I would imagine he felt there was a massive lack because I think it would be hard to not fully experience, let me say it like this, if God has wired us to be his image bearers and in the fullness of the Trinity, they experience joy as the Father delights in the Son, the Spirit and all of that. And that’s happening. And they have fullness of love and fullness of joy.

Then I would imagine Adam was thinking to himself, I would like a corresponding companion here to experience the joy that I see among the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. That I believe he has with the Trinity. But there’s this creature creator distinction that I would imagine Adam goes, I need a creature here with me, like me.

Sharifa >> And not just Adam, but God as well. It’s not good.

Nika >> It’s not good. Yeah, that’s exactly right.

Sharifa >> So, Okay, not to interrupt you.

Nika >> No, no, no, I love the question.

Sharifa >> Because I was like, oh, this is kind of juicy. Okay.

Nika >> Yeah, I love it. Yeah. Yeah. So it’s transmitted through the face, in the voice. It’s relational. And then the third thing they say, which you know, as a Bible scholar and Resident Theologian, I thought was important, it’s really important to God. So that was their third point was in this book, it’s written by Christians, and one is a pastor and one’s a neuro-researcher. I mean, this is what he does.

And his particular area of expertise is joy and attachment. And they talk about you will see this idea of joy and rejoicing and delight from start to finish through the entire Bible. And every good teacher knows if something’s important to you, you repeat it. Every good teacher tells you something’s important, they repeat it. And that’s my good teacher.

So when you do that, I mean, if you just and what’s interesting is there’s oftentimes (and you know this Sharifa from doing word study), sometimes there’s a word that really encapsulates an idea, maybe one Hebrew word and one corresponding Greek word in the old in the New Testament respectively, there’s many words to describe joy and rejoicing in this idea.

And so even if you were to look up the Old Testament of Joy, you would have several words that you would be looking up. Same for the New Testament. And you would also have idioms and phrases that maybe you wouldn’t think to look up. But when you start really getting into the Hebrew, you realize, wait a minute, the researchers are figuring out something that God already knew when he’s communicating to the Hebrew people.

Sharifa >> Do you have any examples of that that you’d like to share.

Nika >> Yeah. So when I learned, hey, joy is mediated through the face, you kind of go, “Okay, sure.” And then you start reading, for example, Psalm 16:11, this really incredible, I think maybe the verse I would take people to, to talk about joy because it says there is fullness of joy in the presence of God.

And I think, why that’s so foundational. I think some people think when they get before God, there will be fullness of disappointment, or fullness of wrath, or fullness of fill in the blank. And I think we have to consistently remind people that, no, no, no, the scriptures say when you are before God, the Father, the Son and the Spirit, there is fullness of joy. But what’s interesting is the Hebrew is actually there’s abundance of joy with your face.

It’s using this very same idea that the researchers, which really the researchers picked up what God was already saying. It’s not a surprise that the research corresponds to that. But this is not the only example. One of my absolute favorite example, I think Psalm 16 is maybe the most important example. But my favorite example is, and people know this verse well, Numbers 6:24-26. Yes, it says, “The Lord, bless you and keep you the Lord. Make His face to shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.”

And I think many times you will think this idea of God turning His face to you is sort of like where He’s been looking away, so now he’s going to look at you and consider you. And really what it’s getting at is, no, this is a blessing upon the people that God would delight in you. As God turns his face toward you, you would understand his great delight and you.

And the reason why I say this is my favorite example is I have a background in textual criticism which means I have a background and looking at ancient manuscripts of the Bible and the oldest manuscript we have of the Hebrew is called the Ketef Hinnom scroll. It’s like a little amulet. It’s not super big, but it’s the oldest piece of scripture we have, and it’s from about 600 BCE. So you’re talking like way back in the day, and this is the verse that’s on it.

So for God to preserve for us, he says—hey, I want you to kick around in the dirt and find this amulet. This super old piece of manuscript. And what’s on there is not, Hey, be careful when you have a boil, go see the priest. It’s not some Levitical passage. It’s not even, Hey, make sure you take out the Canaanites.

Though all scripture is inspired by God and beautiful and good and whatever God would have preserved, I would have received His gift. But here’s God saying—Hey, I want you to be reminded that my posture toward you is one of delight and that I want to bless you. And I want you to know that when I look at you, there’s joy.

And we can keep going. Psalm 87 – Restore us, O, God of Hosts. Let your face shine that we may be saved. Psalm 89:15 – How blessed are the people who worship you, O, Lord, they experience your favor. And that “they experience your favor”. in the light of your face, they walk.

And so it’s really beautiful throughout the Scriptures, and especially in the poetic Psalms and places like that, where you see God really does turn his face toward us. And when He does so, what we see looking back at us is delight. And I think that is maybe, perhaps the most important way that we can cultivate joy is to teach this idea that when God looks at you.

Let’s go back to that example I gave right where I say, Okay, close your eyes and imagine someone. Now I’ll have people say, Okay, close your eyes. I want you to imagine God, whatever image of God you want, I don’t want to create for you what God looks like, but whatever you when you imagine God, when you pray to God, what do you see looking back at you? And could you imagine that the God that’s looking back at you has delight on his face?

Could you allow yourself to see that really, he looks upon you with great joy and great love. His posture toward you is one of desiring to bless you and having delight in you. And that’s the part that people I think people understand the lie, right? People are like, Oh, I love my children, I love my spouse, I love my…

But when I tell people no, no, no, what if what if God looks back at you with delight?

And I recently taught in Pennsylvania, and a woman came to me after I taught on this, and she was like, that’s really hard to believe.

Sharifa >> Yeah, yeah, yeah. Talk more about how viewing God’s delight as a light shining on us how does that revolutionize our theology and our practice?

Nika >> Yeah. I think the biggest thing with theology is so many times I think we like to separate the Son and the Father. So I think if I were to say to you, Imagine Jesus looking back at you, I think people could see delight, yeah, on a Jewish man’s face. I think for them they’re like, sure.

And I think if I said the Holy Spirit, depending on which part of the Christian faith tradition you’re in, especially if you’re in the more Pentecostal faith, you’d be like—Great. Not a problem. Or even if you’re in a more evangelical, maybe you’re not as familiar with the Holy Spirit. I think they’d go, Oh, posture, delight, sure. Okay, somewhere in there. But now imagine the God of the Old Testament that religious leaders for far too long have separated from his Son as if he’s not the full image of the Father.

I think so many times people say, hey, that particular member of the Trinity is very angry and disappointed in me. And I think what that does to your theology is it misunderstands how the Father and the Son are co-conspirators in your salvation, how they have delight in you, that they created you out of an abundance of love, not a lack, that God, while you were still sinners, sent his son to die.

Sharifa >> Say it. Say it.

Nika >> Yeah, yeah, yeah. There’s a theology component that I think is important. But what concerns me. Because I’m a theologian, I always joke that I want people to get their theological pop quizzes right. Hear me. I want my body, if somebody called them one day and said, could you define the Trinity? I want them to be able to articulate that.

But what I really want is, I want when they mess up that they know they can run to God. I want when they feel the loneliness of the world, that they feel the pleasure of God the Father. I think the praxis of it is if you do not believe in your bones that God delights in you, then when you need him most, which is often because we have run, we often don’t return. Which is why Scripture consistently says, well, I’ll come find you, I will come find you.

And when that woman came to me, she was in Philadelphia or in Pennsylvania, she said to me, I just don’t believe that God delights in me. And another woman was standing there and she said, “Well, no one really does.” And I was like—Well, hold on, hold on though, I would argue that there are spiritual practices and rhythms that you could implement so that you actually could believe in your bones, that though you are frail, though you falter, though you mess up that the disposition of God towards you is one of delight, and that he loved you so much, he not only created you, he rescued you. He wants to bring you home to him and that changes the way we parent, that changes the way we worship, that changes the way we repent.

That changes all of our life. And I think this is why Joy is critical to our theological formation.

Sharifa >> Yeah. There are two ways I want to go with this because you have given so much food for thought and just the reiteration because this is important and deserves to be repeated.

Nika >> I love it.

Sharifa >> God’s love is the constant. His delight is the constant. And depending on behavior, depending on where we were born, how we were born, who we were born to – no.

But I want to first acknowledge that part of the reason so many of us do fear him is because of how we were taught. It is often related to trauma. It is often related to spiritual bypassing. And so I want to name those things because people aren’t coming to these conclusions on their own.

Nika >> Absolutely. They were taught that and they experience somebody who speaks for God, perhaps treating them in ways that lacks delight, too.

Sharifa >> Yes. And so I want to be gentle with the people. There are a lot of us out here.

Nika >> “We” – we might be in this category. Yeah, we got to learn this ourselves.

Sharifa >> I don’t want to speak in a “they” because there are a lot of us out here who are still healing and learning who God is because someone associated with God really hurt someone. Yeah. So I want to first acknowledge that. But secondly, you’re on a track to how we cultivate joy, how we do it.

And so I want you to get into the brass tacks of what cultivating joy looks like for those of us who maybe need to be reintroduced to who God the Father is, because it seems to me you didn’t say this and so I could be presuming, but it seems to me that part of cultivating joy is being safe. There is a safety and a grounding. Even if there are tragedies and traumas, it is a place of safety that is necessary to experience joy. Perhaps I’m wrong.

Nika >> You are spot on. That is exactly right. Even in this book, The Other Half of Church, the reason why the woman originally recommended the book is I had this idea of I’d love to pair two people together and have them ask these really vulnerable, exploitative if not done correctly questions.

And she rightly goes—Hey, hey, hey. They need to then be done in an environment where someone is safe. And the way that you’re safe is if you’re with someone who delights in you and is lovingly attached to you. In other words, there’s a commitment there. It’s not just—Hey, I think you’re fun, like we’re buddies, like we can go play pickleball. But we’re not, we’re not bonded in a way that lets you know I’m committed to you and you’re committed to me.

And that’s where that book really pairs them both together to say both joy and love, but love being attachment love. This “hesed” love. This “I’m with you” love. “I’m going to stick with you” love is so necessary in order for people to grow and change and heal. And so when you talk about asking how you cultivate, I’m a resident theologian, my default to everything is, “Oh, we’ll just teach on it,” which is wildly incomplete. So hear me say this, dear teachers out there, we got a hammer and we see everything as a nail and we got to be better. We got to like put some other tools in our toolbox.

However, we do need to teach it. You can’t not teach it. It just can’t only be that. But as I’ve taught it, one of the things that’s so important to understanding about joy is going back to that physical component. So looking at Psalm 16, the reason why I say it’s so important, going back to the fullness of joy in the presence of God, is it talks about a full bodied experience in worship – the full body.

So it talks about my heart is glad is one of the verses. It says that my tongue rejoices, right? This physical expression of joy and of worship of God. And then it says my body rests secure. And I just think, goodness, if there was a verse…

Sharifa >> Selah. Selah.

Nika >> Just imagine, what if every time you walked into church, instead of, “Where am I going to sit? Do I look Okay? Do I have friends? Am I safe here? Am I going to know the songs?” Instead if you walked in, because as you worshiped among the people of God, you knew, hey, my heart is glad in this place. I’m going to worship with my whole body, my mouth, my body. I’m going to bend, I’m going to stand, I’m going to eat, I’m going to smell, I’m going to do all of these things. And when I do that, my body will rest secure. That’s the goal. And so when we teach joy, it can’t be short of that.

That’s what I mean by teaching joy is helping people understand it’s not just an intellectual idea of—Oh, I like that person and God likes me. It’s could we cultivate an environment where people feel safe, where there’s an exhalation as they walk in instead of as they walk out? And teaching that I think is important.

The second thing I would argue about teaching it, too, is I’ve spent a lot of time in Philippians lately and I just marvel at Paul. He’ll have these throwaway comments sometimes that I’m like, “Huh?” And I always just want to be like, what was happening there? So you read the book of Philippians. It’s got some of the highest theology in there, right? It’s got this incredible poem about Christ didn’t consider equality with God a thing to be exploited and humbles himself. He talks about we’re stars in the sky shining? And you’re like, This is amazing.

And at the end, he’s like, a couple of quick things. Could you let Euodia and Syntyche know they really do need to get along. And then he’s like—And by the way, you should rejoice. And by the way, I’m going to say it again, it’s no trouble for me. You really need to rejoice.

And I was thinking about this, and it feels as if sometimes at the end of his letters, it’s like a mom writing to kids at camp and she’s like, “I hope you have the time of your life. You experience Christ. Make sure you put your socks in their dirty bag. Tell your brother I said hi.” Sometimes the closing thoughts are like, what? But the closing thoughts for Philippians: one, unity really matters in that letter, but two, rejoicing is through that whole letter. And when you consider the context, Paul is in prison, the Philippians are facing duress from the outside and the threat of disunity on the inside.

So he’s very concerned for them. He does respond to what’s going on with a high theology. And part of that theology is—I’m calling you to rejoice.

And what I said when I’ve taught this and I’ve thought about this, as someone who’s planted a church and I love my church, I love St Jude. And if I had to go away and I was writing a last letter and they were under duress, I’d probably be like, “Hey, make sure you get your finances in order. Set up a security team. Let’s make sure we double down on discipling the young ones because they’re our future and obviously, life is shorter than I thought it would be.” I don’t know that I would have, prior to doing all this research on joy, have said joy as many times as he says rejoice in that letter.

And that’s instructive to us. And so when we talk about cultivating joy, one of the other things I think when you teach about it is, it is essential to the life of the normative Christian experience needs joy even under duress. It’s not a luxury for when things are good.

Sharifa >> Especially under duress, I would say.

Nika >> Yeah, I think that’s exactly right. That’s exactly right. And if you’re not careful, then right.

So the timing of us doing this, we lost a young man in our church this past week to a medical event he should have recovered from.

Sharifa >> I’m so sorry.

Nika >> Thank you. And here I am this morning talking to his mother, talking to his wife, his widow. And I’m making funeral arrangements and I’m planning a sermon on grief and I’m planning a funeral talk. And I’m going—this is a good time to talk about joy still, because I really do believe that it’s especially in these moments that we need to know that God delights in us, that we can delight in each other and that we can cultivate this in our churches.

And the reason why I feel so confident is not just that’s been the experience of my life, but you see this in the Word. One of the things Paul also writes in 2 Corinthians 6—he talks about how difficult life is. And then he says—we’re sorrowful but always rejoicing. And he puts those things together. And I think that’s why you’re exactly right.

And we quote Daniel the Tiger at our church a lot, which was born out of—so two years ago, one of my best friends put her 18 month old boy down to sleep and he never woke up. And in preparing for that funeral, I have to be able to say out loud, this is not what we want. This is not what we want. And the thing that I said is, “We want Hayden in the arms of his mother. That’s what we want. But if he’s going to be anywhere else, then we can rejoice that he’s in the arms of a savior.”

Sharifa >> Yeah.

Nika >> And both of those can be true. And the thing that I quote from Daniel the Tiger that I quoted that day and quoted many, many days is “You can feel two things at the same time, and it’s okay.” That’s how the song goes. And so there’s a whole song to it. And I think what a profound truth that we should teach children. You can be sad and rejoice. You can feel a lot things. I think about this, we know this as adults, but we don’t talk about it like we know it.

We know what it’s like to hear that this gal gets engaged. And we can be genuinely excited for her while also, “When’s it my turn?”

Sharifa >> Yeah, right.

Nika >> We can feel such sadness when someone moves away, but truly confident this is what God’s calling them to do. And why we tell people these are competing feelings as if that’s not the fullness of the human experience and as if the Scriptures don’t declare this is what it means to be human, is we can feel these things.

Sharifa >> This is really the fullness of humanity, isn’t it?

Nika >> Yeah. Yeah.

Sharifa >> It’s less of an oversimplification saying, Oh, you only have permission to have one of these feelings.

Nika >> Yeah, yeah.

Sharifa >> It’s truly the fullness of humanity that God is allowing us by giving us these complex emotions, but not leaving us in one.

Nika >> Yeah.

Sharifa >> Not leaving us. And I think that’s part of I think you were referencing 2 Corinthians earlier.

Nika >> Yeah. Yeah.

Sharifa >> That is the tension that Paul is raising throughout that first chapter. And God’s comfort is like the canopy of all of these emotions being held in tension because life isn’t all good. Life isn’t all bad.

Nika >> Yeah. It’s complicated and hard. And honestly, I can point to Paul all day, but ultimately I’m going to always point back at Jesus, right?

Sharifa >> That’s right. Amen.

Nika >> Yeah. And you have this moment when he’s in the Garden of Gethsemane sweating blood. He’s under so much duress.

Sharifa >> Yeah.

Nika >> And I think we sometimes in our triumphant desire to rush to Sunday, can tell people, “well, it’s alright. God’s in control. He’s going to rise again.”

When Jesus himself knows, he knows, he knows there’s going to be victory. He knows this is his weird, upside down coronation. He knows he’s about to rise again. He knows. And yet there’s great agony.

And we see the same thing when his friend Lazarus dies. He knows what power he possesses as the life and resurrecting one. And he weeps. There’s this humanness to Jesus that I also think we need to, it’s almost I feel like I give people permission to feel, if you’ve ever been to counseling, then you’ve probably been familiar with the feelings wheel. And I tell people, oh, yes, we have them around the house, just in case. My favorite word on ours is forlorn. And I don’t get to use it very often.

Sharifa >> That’s your favorite?

Nika >> I know. I just think it’s such a good word one we don’t use enough. But what I’ve said in the past is I think it is positionally true that Christians have victory and we have a secure future and we have great hope and we know we will win. Right? There’s victory in Christ. That is positionally true.

But experientially, we have to experience the full wheel. And too many times we don’t give people permission to do that. “Don’t worry, you’ll see him again.”

Sharifa >> What is that even for?

Nika >> I think it’s for the person saying and not for the person receiving it.

And so to grow comfortable in the midst of lament is maturity. And to allow for joy in the midst of a broken world is maturity. And I think all of this is important to understand when you teach joy. Because if you’re teaching joy, so one sidedly that it’s either an intellectual idea or it’s a luxury when things are good, or hey, when things are bad, we’re not going to be sorrowful, we’re just going to be joyful, you’re missing the full picture.

And instead the full picture being it’s a full bodied experience that we participate in, even in the midst of a Genesis 3 world that yet we do have salvation, but we’re not there and we can experience it in the midst of sorrow. And those are the important parts of teaching and that is why I say when I say teach joy, teach all of it, right, is sort of what I would encourage. That would be one of the ways.

Going back, you asked about cultivating. So teaching, of course I said everything’s a nail, but I’ve grown as a teacher.

Sharifa >> Well, teaching can happen in more than one fashion.

Nika >> That’s such a good point. So I’m just going to keep hammering nails since you said that.

Sharifa >> Right. There are different nails. They’re different.

Nika >> That’s exactly right. Yeah. But in addition to teaching, I think modeling is also really important. I put modeling, when I think about one of the most palpable parts of scripture for me, when I lost my sister, I really felt like evil had been thrust upon my family because of the way my sister took her life.

It just felt as if we had been attacked, that there was evil in that moment. And so I would often spend time in those first few months telling the enemy you’re going to get yours. And when you do, I’m going to laugh in your face. And some of some of that was just my own grief.

Right? Some of that wasn’t really theological. That was just me needing somewhere to put the anger that I felt and the pain and the grief. And then some of it was reading Revelation 18 and 19. And there’s this massive culmination at the end of time where Babylon is this representative of every evil empire. And, you know, Babylon always seems to be winning. And we know that Babylon won’t win in the end, but for now, it feels like Babylon wins at times.

Sharifa >> Yeah.

Nika >> And you have this massive cosmic battle in Revelation. And then in 18 and 19, what you get to experience and what you see happening is those who are in Christ are celebrating as Babylon is being finally vanquished for all the harm that she has brought in this world and all of the pain. And there are those who cling to Babylon and they weep for her and you think, you silly, silly people.

But those who have been harmed by Babylon and in specifically Revelation 19:1-3 talks about just this throng of people. And I always encourage people, imagine if you’ve ever traveled the world, you hear joy, you experience joy differently depending on the context you’re in. Some places there’s sounds and songs and so you think of the cacophony of all the joy you’ve ever heard happening in that moment. And one of the things that I think is important for us to do is model that now. If we are to be now who we will be, then, then our eschatology, where we’re headed in the end is to have implications for our ethics now.

Sharifa >> Yeah.

Nika >> And so we need to experience joy now, which also means in our churches, we need to allow people to experience joy the way that they actually experience joy.

Sharifa >> Ooh, that’s messy.

Nika >> That is extremely messy.

Sharifa >> That’s unruly.

Nika >> Yeah, there’s a misunderstanding bound to happen which means you need to have curiosity and grace, and you need to also think maybe I don’t need to be at the center of what joy looks like. Maybe I need to be on the outside and put Jesus back in the center and delight in all these expressions. Yeah, yeah. Which will be hard for folks.

But this is what I come back to, I’d say if the goal is Christoformity and there’s many ways to be like Christ in all the expression of humanity.

Sharifa >> Christoformity, for maybe people who don’t understand that term, can you just explain?

Nika >> Yeah, yeah. If the goal of being truly human is to look more and more like Christ, who was the representative human, if you want to know what it means to be the best version of Sharifa or the best version of Nika, we need not look at Cosmopolitan. We don’t need to look at neighbor. We can look at Christ.

And then because God is good, we can look at other mature believers and say, Okay, these are the things that I want to cultivate in my life, because when she does that, she looks like Christ. But ultimately the carbon copy we’re trying to get after is Jesus.

Sharifa >> Yes.

Nika >> And in us bearing God’s image, the way that God created us in the diversity that he’s created us, in the multitude of languages, the multitude of expression, the multitude, the way people worship, if that’s the goal, is for people to be more like Christ, then it’s not that we’re giving them permission to express joy, it’s that we’re encouraging them.

We’re not a gatekeeper. It’s that we would stand back and say, however you experience joy, we should practice that in our church spaces and create a safe and healthy and loving space for people to do that. And joy is vulnerable. I mean, that’s the part when I say model it, Brené Brown, she talks about joy all the time in her research, and she says joy is the most vulnerable emotion for her because the moment you start experiencing joy, there’s this little voice in the back of your head that says, When’s the other shoe going to drop?

Or are people going to be like, See, here you were out dancing in the streets like David when the ark comes out and you looked a little foolish and you looked a little… and so all of a sudden, joy is just so fleeting. But if it’s an intrusion from God, if it’s an intrusion into this world that is filled with so much of what the Holy Spirit is calling us to be and do, then we need to model that.

Which means those of us who lead in church spaces, in home spaces, in whatever spaces we lead, we need to risk that vulnerability and we need to experience joy. Even if it means the next day the shoe fell, even if it means people go, “Oh, you’re a little funny there.” You go, “Hey, I just love Jesus. I really do.”

Sharifa >> I don’t want to be the one that cultivates a regret of joy. That can’t be our role.

Nika >> Yeah, somebody else can do that. That can’t be us. You can’t be known for that. Yeah. As I always say, haters hate, lovers love. I think people who are hype people, hype. Right? There’s a sense of you cultivate what it is that you desire. And I think if someone’s vulnerable enough to express joy in our churches, I think we should protect vulnerability, not exploit it. And that should be a posture that we have over and over again.

Sharifa >> Amen.

Nika >> Yeah.

Sharifa >> I feel like that is a great place for us to stop for today. Although we could talk about this for hours.

Nika >> Yeah.

Sharifa >> But Nika, I was wondering if you would like to pray for the people who are listening, who want access to this joy and want to cultivate joy.

Nika >> Yeah, I would love to. Let’s pray.

Holy Father, Holy Son, Holy Spirit, your word is very clear. And what a gift that you preserve that for us from the scroll from 600 B.C to the Scriptures we have in our hands today, your Word, your people and your Spirit declare you are a God of delight. That when we are in your presence, there is fullness of joy.

And so God where we do not experience that yet, would you help us to not run from that, to feel shame from that, to worry about what is lacking, but instead would turn to you and ask you to give us more? Would you help us to build rhythms? Would you help us to build spaces where we can encounter delight, not just from you, but from each other? Would you make those places safe and loving and kind and good?

God, I pray for my friends who are feeling sorrow that you would comfort them. I pray for my friends who are feeling grief that you would remind them that though they weep for the night, joy does come in the morning. Would you make us more like your Son? Joyful. Yes, sorrowful but joyful still. Would you bless my friends with the gift of joy, God? We ask this in the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit. And God’s people said Amen.

Sharifa >> Amen. Well, thank you, Pastor Nika for your time. This was rich.

Nika >> Thanks.

Sharifa >> I appreciate it. And I’ll be praying for you for this funeral coming up.

Nika >> Thank you. I really do appreciate that.

Sharifa >> For all of us who are listening or watching, if you would like to see more podcast videos, resources, you can do so by going to our website at BeyondOrdinaryWomen.org. Thank you.

Nika >> It’s been a pleasure. It’s always good to see you, friend.