Holy Heartburn: A Joyful Sorrow

Ever notice how the moment you choose the right, life can suddenly feel heavier? We open up about that sting—why drawing closer to Christ often exposes the dust in our lives before it brings relief—and how that discomfort can be a reliable sign you’re actually on the path. Anchored in 2 Nephi 4 (Nephi’s psalm), we map a lived pattern: first delight in God, then the shock of self-clarity, then a decisive turn toward trust. Along the way we unpack the difference between guilt that moves you and shame that maims you, and we explore why frequency of repentance often beats dramatic, one-time change.

We walk through Nephi’s emotional arc to show how light doesn’t accuse—it illuminates. That clarity invites action, not self-loathing. We talk about falling across the path of discipleship, choosing gratitude as fuel, and building a cadence of small obediences that add up to real transformation. If you’ve asked, “Why do I still struggle?” you’re not failing; you’re alive to God. That ongoing wrestle can shape a personal bond with Christ, turning “a Savior” into “my Savior.”

We also tackle the role of memory after forgiveness. Scripture teaches that guilt can be swept away while memory remains—not to punish, but to protect and teach. When we cling to guilt as identity, we undercut the Atonement’s sufficiency. Letting joy replace bitterness is not denial; it’s discipleship. By the end, you’ll have a practical lens for navigating “joyful sorrow,” recognizing holy ache, and moving from clarity to courage.

If this conversation helps you breathe easier and press forward, share it with a friend, subscribe, and leave a review so others can find it. What part of Nephi’s pattern resonates with your story?

Transcript

Welcome And A Hard Question

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Welcome to Hear Him Kill You with Morgan and Joel. This podcast is for those who are imperfect and rough around the edges, but are still wanting to come under Christ. Essentially, it's for everyone. So join us to get yourself out of the mental mire, find meaning and emotion, and leave bad behind. This is where we hear him to be healed. Alrighty. Welcome back, little flock. You know, what a good day. I got laid off of my last job, but it was a good layoff. I chose to be laid off, and I already had another job lined up. And so it's nice to be back at work. Anyways, super excited

Why The Path Feels Harder

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for this episode. It's one that I have had like kind of had a hard time trying to explain to people, especially when the question comes up of like, why does it so much harder when I'm doing something right? And it's almost as like people feel worse when they come back to the gospel or they're trying to change their lives for the better. And sometimes life does get harder when walking the path of discipleship. And I've been putting my brain to this question and thinking about this for a while. Not too long ago, I had a conversation with a friend. I just remember her asking, is like, why is this so much harder now that I want to have a relationship with God, with my Savior Jesus Christ? And I did not have a good answer in that moment. Honestly, I really didn't. And this was a couple months ago. So I've kind of been going back and forth on why I think it feels like life gets harder. Why it's almost as if it's a joyful sorrow. We feel this like awesome, amazing feelings as we begin to experience the love of God as we begin to partake of that fruit. And then it's almost like we get a whiplash of like, I'm the worst. We almost feel like we see ourselves clearly for the first time, and we are just like nowhere near the statue of Christ. And we feel like we are absolutely the worst person on the planet, and we want to go run away. Just as soon as we came back to Christ, we almost want to get it going again. And run away is sometimes how it feels. And this is kind of the thing that I wanted to talk about today. Um, because there's definitely been times in my life where I have come back, I've repented, I've done what I've to do, and then it's almost as if like someone turned up the volume on my guilt. And it's almost sometimes unbearable. And then I also have noticed that there's times when that

Joy And Whiplash Of Self-Awareness

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heaviness and that guilt lingers way longer than expected. And so I guess that's those are the questions. Why does coming closer to God sometimes hurt? And why does the return feel like sorrow before joy? I guess the thesis I want to propose is that maybe sorrow isn't evidence of distance from God. Maybe it's the evidence that we're getting closer. Because I always want to look for indicators or evidences that I'm on the right path, because it almost feels like I have no idea if I'm on the right path or I'm anywhere close to the Savior. And in my experience and what scripture has taught me, I almost feel like getting closer to Christ, we experience more sorrow, which is an indicator that we're doing what's right. We're on the right path. I remember Brother Reynolds, one of my institute teachers in college, this is almost like six, seven years ago now, he would say, sometimes walking the path of discipleship isn't just, you're not just walking it, you're just falling across it. And you're trying to fall across the path of discipleship as many times as possible. Because every time you take one step on, it almost feels like you're falling right back off. But if you take enough steps along it, eventually you'll get where you're going. So it feels like the path isn't a straight shot, it's a zigzag, you know? And the more I've thought about that, the more I feel like it is true. Where is evidence of this in the scriptures? And there's one scripture, one chapter in the Book of Mormon that is like literally my favorite, and it's a Nephi's Psalm. For anybody that doesn't know, Nephi's Psalm is found in 2 Nephi 4. And I remember I

Falling Across Discipleship

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read this at a time right before my mission, where it was probably like it was like a few months out, or maybe it was within the year of me leaving on my mission, where I had to repent of some things. And I was sitting there just like feeling terrible. I was like, I don't even know if I'm good enough to go on a mission. And I just remember reading this chapter and it just resonated with my soul, like to the point where I don't ever forget what this chapter says. Like I come back to it quite frequently, especially when I feel in the lowly parts or I feel like I have not been connected with God. For some reason, this chapter always, always helps me reconnect with my savior. And um, I want to kind of walk you guys through this pattern that I feel like I've experienced and that I think many others have experienced. And the reason why I love this chapter is because you get to see the inner workings of Nephi's emotions. And there's not many instances where we get to see deeply into the inner workings of people in scripture. And that's why I love the Book of Mormon so much. I feel like there's quite a few instances, like with Nephi, with Alma the Younger,

Setting The Nephi Context

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even with the brother Jared, and even Moroni, like there's so many like instances where we get to see the glimpse into the humanity of these spiritual giants who wrote down their experiences for us, so in hopes that we could learn from it. So if you guys don't know the context to 2 Nephi 4, this is right when Lehi is pretty much on his deathbed, and he is just kind of admonishing his children that they should be living in living the gospel. And he kind of rebukes Laman and Lemuel. He blesses Sam and Nephi and their posterity and everything like that. And then Lehi passes away. And Laman and Lemuel kind of throw a fit after their father's passing. Like they kind of like, once again, they're always rebellious. And Nephi is trying to admonish them to like stay in the path of God and and walk the path of discipleship. And so basically, you can see that like Nephi is probably going through a really rough time. His mentor and father, the person who gate helped plant the seed of faith, has just passed away. And he's probably grieving. And then to compound that, he has his pretty much his mortal enemies, Layman and Lemuel, who've beaten him, have like berated him and bullied him all his life just for doing what's good. And here they are in probably Nephi's lowest moment. They are kicking him while he's down. And so this kind of sets the stage for Nephi to like really have this profound experience with God. Because I think sometimes that's how we feel is whenever we're having a bad moment, it almost feels like when it rains, it pours, or like

Step One: Delight In God

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once again, we get uh we get kicked further down. It's almost like beating a dead horse. Like when things aren't going right, it almost seems like everything's not going right. And the thing that I love, Nephi's like, I love the things of God. So the first step when Nephi is kind of having this emotional experience is he's like, my soul delighteth in the things of the Lord. That's his first, first thing. And I think we feel that same way. I think when we first start wanting to repent or um first forming a relationship or coming out of a bad time, we experience this delight. And something begins to awaken within us. And with that comes a greater sense of spiritual sensitivity. That's step one. I think we all experience that. Nephi experienced it, but it quickly

Step Two: Oh Wretched Man

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gives way to step two in this emotional process. Nephi starts out right after this point. He's like, Oh, wretched man that I am. I don't know how many times I've said a variation of that. I'm like, why am I so stupid? Or like, will I ever get this right? Or it's like, I don't think I belong here. I don't think I'm meant for the church. I think we all would say some variation of, oh, wretched man or woman that I am. And what I'm seeing here is because of that greater spent uh spiritual sensitivity, we also gained more self-clarity. We've almost experienced the goodness of God, and we then see ourselves and we see the wretchedness of what man is and the wretchedness of our sins. And that contrast makes us almost hate ourselves. And I think that's what Nephi experiences here. He gets closer to God and instantly he realizes he becomes more aware of his weaknesses, his temptations, his sins. And

Light Exposes The Dust

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this is critical. Coming closer to the light exposes all the dust. It's almost like God has entered in and we've been sitting in this dark room with all the filth, all the disorganization in our lives, and it's all exposed all at once. And that's where I think we feel more sorrow and more guilt before it gets better. Because we finally see clearly. And in my own life, I feel like clarity should always be the goal. It's not until we can see clearly can we actually do something about it. Just like how, like, when we're trying to make our way through the house at night, or like we're on a walk in the dark, it's really hard to find our way until it's been illuminated. And so I think on our path of discipleship, we need to turn on the light and illuminate the way. And the great thing, the great example of Nephi that I think I love the most is he doesn't wallow in the guilt. That is, I think there's definitely points where we need to analyze and indicate where we have to use our agency to make that decision. And so one thing I really want to illustrate

Choosing Trust Over Wallowing

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is one, when we turn back to God, we experience that delight. That's where we first use our agency. Another point where we kind of give that agency or that gift of agency or choice back to God is when we start feeling sorrowful again in the repentance process. Because Nephi doesn't stop and wallow in sin, he instantly chooses to continue his trust in God, even though it's a painful journey. And this is what Nephi, um, this is what Nephi says, right after saying, Oh, wretched man that I am, he says, Nevertheless, I know in whom I have trusted. Even while acknowledging his weakness and like feeling guilty about like the gap between him and God and his savior, he affirms that God is his support, that God preserves him, God confounds his enemy, God gives him knowledge. So he's like, I know, and he's almost showing his appreciation. I feel like sometimes showing gratitude is a great way

Step Three To Four: Frustration With Repeat Sin

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to put our trust back in God. It's like, I see everything you've done for me, and I know you're gonna do more for me. And so it's almost like he it motivates us. That that second, like that almost like instantaneous guilt, it's a good guilt. It should not paralyze us. That's how you distinguish between is this like shame or is this guilt? Guilt should motivate us to not want to keep sinning. And that's where we have to like once again make that that choice. However, this is where things can begin to cycle. We can either have an upward ascent to God or a downward spiral from God. Because we all know that we make the same mistakes over and over and over again. That is where frustration enters in. So step four, and we get to see this with with Nephi. He says this, Oh then, if I have seen so great things, why should my heart weep and my soul linger in the valley of sorrow? And why should I yield to sin because of my flesh? I think we've all asked ourselves those same questions. Why do I keep doing this? Why am I so weak? Why can I just not get this right? Why do I still give in? Why do I still struggle?

Indicators You’re Still In The Fight

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And I think it is natural to feel frustrated with repeated sin because we have tasted the goodness of God. And I think that that struggle, once again, that frustration of like repeatable sin is another indication that we're on the right path. If we stop asking ourselves those questions, why do I am I why do I struggle still? Why do I want to sin? Like, it means we are rebelling against God. We no longer want to overcome sin. We we're no longer doing this self-check. And if once we stop doing that self-check and let ourselves just be pulled down the current of sin, that's when you're no longer in the fight. You're no longer in the struggle. And that's why I think once again, this is an indicator you're on the right path. The more we try to overcome

Step Five: Awake My Soul

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sin, we will continually see how hard it is. And we will have repeated sin. But if we're not stopping and asking ourselves, how can I do better? How can I readdress this? How can I once again engage with my savior? That's when this battle, this struggle is no longer serving us. We're actually going backwards. However, once again, Nephi shows that we can exercise our agency. So in step five, we see Nephi engage in the renewal cycle, this awakening. And I would even say this is a refining cycle because instead of just staying in this frustration once again. So we've seen him first come to God, experience the light, see himself clearly, experience intense guilt. Then he puts his trust in God. And as he's putting his trust in God, he's like, I'm still sinning, I'm still messing up. Once again, we see him turn constantly back toward the Savior, and he says this awake my soul, no longer droop in sin, rejoice, oh my heart,

Frequency Over Grand Gestures

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and give place no more for the enemy of my soul. I think this is where we all are at. This is the part that resonated with my soul when I was eighteen, seventeen, almost twelve years ago, is I was like, I don't want to keep sinning. I don't want to keep doing the same thing over and over and over again. I don't want to droop in sin and have my s my heart be weepy in the words of in the words of Nephi. This the refiner cycle is to experience the fall of sin, repent, fell again, repent, fell again, all along the way, experiencing our Savior. Enter in each and every time. That's why it becomes so refining. It's not because we need these big, amazing forgiveness moments. It's because each and every time we fell, we experience the Savior. Becoming better isn't just having this miraculous change. It's having miraculous change happen frequently. You know, I think the more I live the gospel, I think sometimes I think about the gospel wrong, where I think I have to do these great acts, but rather I should be more worried about the frequency of good acts. Just because I finally overcome one big thing in my life doesn't show evidence that Christ is my savior,

Step Six: A Personal Savior

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it's the fact that I've overcome and invested in my relationship with him time and time again. That is what builds this joyful discipleship is the frequency of having touched the robe of Christ again and again and feeling his healing power again and again, little by little, accumulating memories and experiences with our Savior Jesus Christ. That's why it's a refining, that's why it's a renewal process is because of frequency, not because of grandiosity. And that's why step six is we obtain a personal Savior and become a lifelong disciple. And we can see this illustrated in Nephi's words. One scripture says, O Lord, I will praise thee forever, yea, my soul will rejoice in thee, my God, and the rock of my salvation. The next one he says, O Lord, wilt thou encircle me around encircle me round in the robe of thy righteousness. He then goes on and says, O Lord, I have trusted in thee and I will trust in thee forever. And then the very last scripture, I think, is the banger of all scriptures in this in this chapter. And he says, Yea, my God. He says, Yea, for I will lift up my voice unto thee. Yea, I will cry unto thee, my God, the rock of my right righteousness. Behold, my voice shall forever ascend up unto thee, my rock, my everlasting God. Amen. That is the part where Nephi actually shifts from talking about like God or his

What Guilt Is For

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savior to and he uses the word my God, my rock, mine everlasting God. You can see that Nephi switched from just believing in a God, in a savior, to now that his God is his God, his savior. And as we go through this joyful sorrow, what we come out of it with is a personal savior. And he, our personal savior, has gained a lifelong disciple. And through that lifelong disciple, Christ replicates us in his image. We become Christ-like. The image of Christ becomes our outward manifestation of an inward work that God has wrought. And that's our ultimate goal. We all want to be better. We all want to be greater individuals. And it's only through engaging in this repentance cycle, this frustration, this kind of sometimes lasting guilt, that's the only way we can really uh get it. And there's a few things that arose from me writing reading this is as I as I read through this, I was like, what really is the role of guilt? What is it actually for? So the question I want to keep asking is like, what is guilt

Guilt Removed, Memory Remains

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doing in all of this? And as I was thinking on this question, I was like, how does guilt motivate us? How does guilt change us? I remember um reading the book, The Infinite Atonement from Ted R. Kalister. He talked about how guilt is spiritual pain. And as I kind of thought more on this, and I went back and read um a little bit more about this, that's where I'm like, sometimes I think we associate this pain with our image, where like guilt means we're bad rather than we've experienced something bad. Because when we feel that guilt, it's spiritual pain, it doesn't mean we're being punished. It's actually a feedback loop. It's information. So in all of this, in this cycle that I just illustrated with Nephi, I think if we begin to change our relationship with guilt as it's an alert, it's a notification in our lives, and it's a motivator. It's meant to move us towards that healing power. Like I said, it means we're on the right path. It means we're moving toward Christ and we're doing what he wants us to. Guilt isn't our identity. It's almost saying, like, let's say someone developed cancer. It's almost like someone's like believes they're a bad person because they have gotten cancer, because they developed a disorder. They have this dysfunction of their body, and that's why they're bad. That's essentially what we're saying when we when we view guilt as our identity. And this is where um, as I thought more on this, I realized like guilt doesn't actually like guilt does go away. However, memory of what we've done stays. And so I as I was thought more about about this, because like sometimes I wonder, like, why do I still feel bad? Or should I still feel bad? And I was like, will this never leave me? And I think I want to like illustrate a few things because as I went through the scriptures, I I

Memory As Caution, Not Condemnation

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read um about Enos, and Enos says this, thy sins, when he was praying in the forest, he says, and he receives the forgiveness of his sins, and he says this, and God told him this thy sins are forgiven thee, my guilt was swept away. He still remembered what he had done, but the torment was gone. Then fast forward to Alma the Younger, when he was in that three-day period where he was like wrestling with like all the wrong he had done, and he catches hold upon like he had this similar experience. It's really interesting to compare Alma the Younger's time to Neph uh Nephi's psalm because there's a point where Alma begins to exercise faith. He's like, I remember my God my father taught of this savior, just as a savior out there. And as I thought upon him, this is where he says this he says, I was harrowed up no more of my sins. And after that, he talks about how his savior became his God, his savior. But once again, we see. The guilt was taken away. And then in Doctrine or Covenants, I love the this language because it talks about God's role and how he associates himself with our guilt. And he says, when people forgive, he says this. He says, The Lord forgives those who confess. He even goes on to say, I remember them no more. And then even in Mosiah, he says, As often as my people will repent, I will forgive them. The pattern is clear. Repentance equals forgiveness, guilt removed. What's

Don’t Wear Guilt As Identity

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great is even though we'll remember our sins still, God doesn't remember our sins. They are removed. God doesn't harbor our guilt or a memory, but he does know that memory is important in our learning. And this is where I think I am starting to understand the role of guilt and memory after repentance and forgiveness is received. Guilt is always removed. Memory remains because it is a yellow caution light. And sometimes with memory, it does spark up feelings of guilt and sorrow. But it doesn't mean that we have to let those be the preeminent feeling that we experience after sin, after we've repented and been forgiven. It's really kind of like it's almost like a trauma response, to be honest. Because if we didn't experience these intense feelings during repentance and it formed this memory around repenting, around doing something wrong, we would go straight back to it. So the memory and the gut-clenching moment when we think of sinning is what is meant to protect us. God removes punishment and the consequences of sin when we repent. That's why we get re forgiveness, is as if we never done it. But he doesn't remove the wisdom. He wants us to remember our sins, but he doesn't want us to experience the guilt again and again.

Let Joy Replace Bitterness

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We will remember sin. We won't re-experience the guilt of it. And this is kind of why I wanted to do this because I see this in the church again and again. And I think it's a cultural thing that we need to unlearn. This distinction between memory of sin and guilt for sin, it's subtle, but sometimes we internalize this guilt. It becomes who we are. We're saying the cancer is what makes us bad. The pain we experience makes us bad. Because we say, instead of saying I did something wrong, I'm experiencing something bad. We then shift to I am wrong, I am bad, and that is not from God. Once again, I want to re-illustrate this. Guilt is meant to indicate, move, and correct. Guilt is not meant to define us, condemn us, or paralyze us. If guilt becomes our identity, it stops being divine, it starts being destructive. If you are saying, like, I hate myself, I don't know, like if you're saying I am bad, I'm not, I don't belong in this church, I'm never, I will never be good enough, I will never overcome this. Your guilt is becoming destructive. And I want to like really say this like trying to hold on to that guilt isn't humility either. It doesn't make you a better person to

Final Exhortation: Hear Him

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be constantly experiencing guilt. It's also, it's like, once again, you're instead of just using guilt to say, just like how we use guilt to say I'm a bad person, like it's becoming our identity, sometimes we're like, I harbored my guilt, I remember all my pain. And because I want to hold on to this pain, that's what makes me a better person. That's what makes me righteous. Like I see that too. Just because you want to bring up your sins again and again and again doesn't mean you have truly repented. We should move on from our sins. We should move on to rejoicing. We shouldn't stay stuck because it actually is an indication that we have a lack of faith in Christ's atonement when we hold on to that guilt. Because if God says, I remember them no more, but we insist on remembering them with self-condemnation, we are subtly saying his payment was insufficient. At some point, faith means trusting in forgiveness, accepting the peace, letting joy replace bitterness. Sometimes letting God in is an act of faith, believing that our sins are not so horrible that they're unforgivable. That's why sorrow turns to joy. And that's why this journey, the joyful sorrow, works. That's why guilt, that's why we need to understand guilt better and what it can do in our lives. Just like how Nephi won't again and again use the guilt to motivate him, to indicate him and move back to his savior, not away from his savior. The sorrow we feel coming back to God is not a rejection. It's a refinement. It is the ache of light entering dark places. It's like the medicine that it's kind of like Mary Poffin saying, a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down. We have to combine this joy joyfulness, this delight in God along with the sorrow for the medicine to take effect, you know? It is the groaning of a soul that delights in God, but recognizes it's dependent on him. The sorrow is holy because it leads to somewhere. It leads us to the holy of holies in our personal lives. If we allow the process to be completed, the sorrow turns sweet. And Tatar Kalister also says this the goal of repentance is the exquisite and sweet joy that replaces the bitter guilt of sin. So I guess in wrapping all this up, maybe the fact that you feel sorrow is not proof that you're failing. Maybe it's proof that your soul still delights in God. Let guilt move you, but don't let it define you. Let it awaken you, and then let Christ replace it with joy. And with that said, little flock, despair not, build upon the rock, do good, and always hear him. Love you guys.