Finding Joy Through Service: How Helping Others Heals Your Heart

What if the act of helping others could actually heal your own emotional wounds? It sounds counterintuitive, but the evidence is compelling. Good works don't just benefit those on the receiving end—they transform us in profound ways, acting as a form of therapy that science and scripture both affirm.

Drawing from Isaiah 58:10, we explore how pouring ourselves out for others can transform our darkness into light and our gloom into brightness. This biblical promise finds powerful echoes in modern research showing that acts of service and generosity literally change our brain chemistry—reducing stress hormones, increasing happiness, and improving overall wellbeing. As Sarah Conrath's research demonstrates, regular volunteers experience "increased life satisfaction, happiness, self-esteem and psychological well-being" compared to non-volunteers, with benefits lasting for years.

We unpack the fascinating concept of the cognitive triangle from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, revealing how intentionally engaging in acts of service (behavior) can positively impact our emotions (feelings), which then reshape our perspective (thoughts). This creates what we call the "treadmill of doing good and feeling good"—a virtuous cycle where service leads to joy, which motivates more service. The challenge is simply making the decision to step onto this treadmill through small, intentional acts of kindness.

Ready to experience this transformative cycle firsthand? We challenge you to help someone this week in a way that lifts you both, then pay attention to the emotional benefits you receive. Whether it's inviting someone for coffee or offering assistance, you might be surprised at how serving others serves your own heart. Listen now to discover how you can start your journey toward emotional healing through good works.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to Made for Good, the podcast where we
explore how to live out ourpurpose through good works.
Hey.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
I'm Josh and I'm Mark .
Today's topic is a powerful one.
We're going to talk about goodworks as therapy.
We often think about doing goodas helping other people, but
what if I told you that servingothers actually can have a
profound impact on us?
Well, this is one of thosecases, josh, where science and
scripture both confirm, or arein agreement, that good works

(00:34):
leads to emotional healing,greater joy overall and really a
stronger sense of purpose.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
And Mark.
Out of all the episodes we'vetalked about so far, this is one
of the ones where we just needa little bit more help.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
Yeah, it's a pretty heavy topic and we're not
therapists.
So we reached out to a coupleof friends of ours who are
certified therapists and arevery experienced years and years
of experience.
What they shared with us wasvery insightful and it really
confirmed what we read in thescripture.
So let's get into Bible basis.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
Yeah, there's so many examples of how serving others
brings about personaltransformation, joy that we want
to talk about today.
There's three, and specificallythat you'll hear just
throughout this episode.
We're going to start in Isaiah58, 10, where it says if you
pour yourselves out for thehungry and satisfy the desire of

(01:25):
the afflicted, then shall yourlight rise in the darkness and
your gloom be as the noonday.
And this is an amazing promise.
When we give ourselves, whatthis is saying is God's going to
lift us up in the process.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
So you're saying that these good works, this pouring
yourself out for the hungry, isgoing to lead to an emotional
good feeling.
I love that that phrase yourgloom shall be as the noonday.
Yeah, so what we have here is areally a renewal, both

(02:00):
emotionally and, I think, evenat a spiritual level, both
emotionally and I think even ata spiritual level.
So serving others really shiftsour mindset from what's wrong
in my life to how can I be ablessing to other people, and it
brings light to their life aswell.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
That's so true.
We've used Jesus as our modelthroughout these episodes, and
that's what we'll do again today.
It's interesting that he pouredhimself out for others, but I
guess the question is but didthat bring about joy for him?

Speaker 2 (02:32):
So what you're asking is did the good works that
Jesus did while on earth,ultimately him giving his life,
did that bring him joy?
Does it sound joyful?
But I think that if you look inHebrews 12, verse 2, it says
Looking to Jesus, the founderand perfecter of our faith, who,

(02:52):
for the joy that was set beforehim, endured the cross,
despising the shame, and isseated at the right hand of the
throne of God.
So in that, right there, nextto each other, you've got joy.
And enduring the cross, jesusunderstood the impact of what he

(03:12):
was going to do, the impact onthe whole world, the good that
he was going to do.
Although the good work wasdifficult, it was.
Ultimately it was horrible inthat he gave his life for us.
He endured the cross, but hedid that knowing the joy.
So if you go back to your versethat you mentioned in Isaiah,

(03:36):
does pouring yourself out forthe hungry seem like?
Is that a fun thing to do?
It doesn't seem very fun, butit led to joy.
It led to our gloom being asthe noonday, in other words,
bright, sunny, and the gloom isgone, you can see the light of
the day.

(03:56):
So, jesus, enduring the crosswas profitable.
It was profitable for us.
In fact, that reminds me of thepassage in Titus 3.8.
This saying is trustworthy, andI want you to insist on these
things so that those who havebelieved in God may be careful
to devote themselves to goodworks.

(04:18):
This is Paul teaching Tituswhat he should be teaching those
that he's preaching to, and hesays and here's the key these
things are excellent andprofitable for people.
While it doesn't saynecessarily that they're
emotionally profitable, I thinkit means that that these things
are profitable for people.

(04:39):
If we can devote ourselves togood works, we can grow
spiritually as well asemotionally, and we can have a
true sense of the purpose inlife.

Speaker 1 (04:50):
Here's what we think is really interesting about all
of this.
Is that what we've said so farthis is backed up in science as
well.
Studies show that acts ofgenerosity reduce stress,
increase happiness and evenimprove physical health.
There's actual research showingthat giving giving lowers
cortisol, the stress hormonewhich helps with anxiety yeah,

(05:12):
that's true, josh.

Speaker 2 (05:13):
You know there was a paper.
Actually, it was a chapter thatwas written in a larger book,
the the name of the book was.
It was edited by Sarah Conrath.
This is back in 2014, where herchapter was titled the Power of
Philanthropy and Volunteering,and she drew a very clear

(05:39):
comparison between doing goodand feeling good.
She says this giving behavior,the philanthropy, this giving
behavior, ultimately leads to alower cortisol, which is you
said it was a stress hormone,and responses as a consequence
of reduced feelings of shame.
Giving money to others literallygets under our skin, with

(06:02):
implications for longer termhealth.
And she says also, as withmoney, how time is used seems to
be more important than theamount of available time.
In terms of predictingpsychological well-being, sarah
Conrath also says all knownstudies find that regular
volunteers experience increasedlife satisfaction, happiness,

(06:26):
self-esteem and psychologicalwell-being, and fewer depressive
symptoms, even a few yearslater, compared to those who do
not volunteer.
So this is a lasting impact onour emotional well-being.
And what are we talking about?
We're talking about justvolunteering our time to help
others.
So doing good helps us to feelgood and feeling good helps us

(06:49):
to do good Mark.

Speaker 1 (06:50):
I've heard this before.
This is not this is notnecessarily a scientist, but
wasn't once said if you lookgood, you feel good.
If you feel good, you play good.
If you play good no no, no, no,no, no.

Speaker 2 (07:00):
We're not quoting professional football players
here, or college coaches.
By the way, take the sunglassesoff, we're inside.
You don't need that.
And where did you get thatcowboy hat?

Speaker 1 (07:12):
I mean really, this is embarrassing.
No one knew until you saidsomething about it.
On a serious note, what we'resaying is, the more we serve,
the more joy we experience, andit makes us really just want to
continue servicing.
It's like an endless cycle.

Speaker 2 (07:26):
Yeah, and if you take a look at another passage in 2
Thessalonians 2, verse 16 and 17, it says Now may our Lord,
jesus Christ himself and God,our Father, who loved us and
gave us eternal comfort and goodhope through grace and gave us
eternal comfort and good hopethrough grace comfort your
hearts and establish them inevery good work and word.

(07:50):
And so what we had in theprevious passage in Isaiah, we
had good works producing goodfeelings.
Right In this case.
As Christians, we've been givencomfort and hope through grace
given to us by God, the Father,and our Lord and Savior, jesus

(08:13):
Christ.
We've got the comfort of ourhearts and that should actually
lead us to good works, because,as we've said in our
foundational verse in Ephesians2.10, we are created in Christ
for good works.
So the comfort that we have, theemotional feeling, the good
feeling that we have, shouldproduce good work.

(08:36):
So it's really the opposite ofwhat we saw in Isaiah 58, where
the good works produce the goodfeeling.
And now we've got the goodfeeling, the comfort of your
hearts producing the good work.
So we've got this cycle, thistreadmill of doing good and
feeling good, and feeling goodand doing good.
But how do I jump on thattreadmill.

(08:57):
Another thing that we learnedfrom our friends who are
certified therapists is thisconcept of a cognitive triangle.

Speaker 1 (09:05):
I don't know if listeners, or maybe just myself,
knew we were going to talkabout geometry.

Speaker 2 (09:11):
Okay, well, this is conceptual geometry.
There'll be no math.
We did establish that.
So we're not doing sines andcosines, but we are talking
about cognitive triangle.
It's really just three pointsin how they're connected
together.
In cognitive behavioral therapy,cbt, there is something called
a cognitive triangle, and whatit really is is a way to model

(09:34):
and show the relationshipbetween our thoughts, our
feelings and our actions orbehaviors.
So in this case, what we wantto do is project onto that
triangle what we've been talkingabout doing good.
That's the behavior, the actionand feeling good.

(09:55):
Those are our feelings, josh.
What's missing out of that?
To make our third element ofour triangle Thoughts, Thoughts.
Okay, so we've got to make adecision.
We've got to jump in on thistreadmill of doing good, and so
you know again to use that wordthat is overused intentional
intentionality.

(10:16):
We've got to make the decisionnow to jump in, and so that
decision is really the thingthat's keeping us off the
treadmill of doing good andfeeling good is that we're
sitting back, we're seeing it,we see the good there.
How do we take advantage of it?

(10:36):
How do we help others and helpourselves?
Well, it's really taking action.

Speaker 1 (10:43):
This aligns perfectly with 1 Corinthians 10, 31,
where the Bible says whateveryou do, do all to the glory of
God.
In other words, when we keepserving, we glorify God and grow
in joy.

Speaker 2 (10:56):
Okay, and that's ultimately what we want to do.
I mean going about good works.
Why do we do them?
To glorify God, and in thisdoing good and glorifying God,
we can kind of experience thelight that is being in his
kingdom.
And so that leads us into ourmission.
This week.
Our challenge is for you tomake the decision to engage,

(11:21):
thought, to do good and then tofeel good.
So find a way this week to helpsomeone Again, in all these
things, it doesn't have to be ahuge.
We're not asking if you write abig donation check.
Help someone in a way thatmaybe lifts you both up.
One way to do that, josh, is ifyou invited somebody to coffee,

(11:43):
number one, the two of you aregetting caffeine, you're getting
the benefit of coffee, butyou're also getting something
out of it where you're getting arelationship being built, which
is what we talked about in theprevious episode but you're also
helping, engaging, maybeencouraging someone.
So just make the decision, sendthe text.
Hey, do you want to go getcoffee today?

(12:05):
Or, if you're not a coffeedrinker, you know, maybe you
want to go to Chick-fil-A andget lunch or something like that
.
But pay attention to how youfeel after you do that, yeah,
and experience Maybe the joythat you have when you're
driving back home and it was areally good conversation.
I went there.
It so often happens to try tohelp that person feel good and

(12:28):
what happens.
Maybe I was successful in doingthat, but I feel good about
doing good, right.

Speaker 1 (12:36):
Well, a shameless plug here.
We are monitoring our socialmedia accounts for any questions
or comments, so we would justsay keep them coming.
And then I'd also just like to,before you end, mark, I know
I've said this my third time.
You have embarrassed me threetimes.
Well, probably going to bethree times.
You've embarrassed me two times.
Are we going to talk about thatsecret project yet, or not?

Speaker 2 (12:58):
Well, look, it's just really for people to read
between the lines, you know, butI'm not really ready for us to
give any details, but it'scoming, okay.
So those who can read betweenthe lines can see that.
Then they may know where we'regoing with this.

Speaker 1 (13:13):
I think so.

Speaker 2 (13:15):
All right.
Well, that's our episode forthis week.
If you found this helpful, we'dask that you consider sharing
it with a friend.
And until next time, well, dogood and remember you are made
for this.
Thank you.