What can I do when the Joy has run out?

How long can a human being live without joy?

Proverbs 17:22New King James Version (NKJV)

22 A merry heart does good, like medicine,[a]
But a broken spirit dries the bones.

Proverbs 17:22New International Reader's Version (NIRV)

22 A cheerful heart makes you healthy.
    But a broken spirit dries you up.

Proverbs 17:22The Message (MSG)

22 A cheerful disposition is good for your health;
    gloom and doom leave you bone-tired.

Dear Lord, yes there is even a physical connection to our bodies and health by the state of our joy.  Please show me how to be joyful when mine has all run out. I am sad and tired and trying to endure and be patient.  But I need a fresh touch of you. 

You say, "the joy of the Lord is your strength" Nehemiah 8:10 and I believe it with all my heart.  I am not looking necessarily for the giddy feelings of happiness but for the solid joy that is indestructible because it is based on who you are and what you are doing and have done. 

    

2 1-3 Three days later there was a wedding in the village of Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there. Jesus and his disciples were guests also. When they started running low on wine at the wedding banquet, Jesus’ mother told him, “They’re just about out of wine.”

4 Jesus said, “Is that any of our business, Mother—yours or mine? This isn’t my time. Don’t push me.”

5 She went ahead anyway, telling the servants, “Whatever he tells you, do it.”

I am not sure why Jesus tells his Mother that this lack of wine is not their business and then he goes ahead to do something about it anyway or why after such an answer, she tells the servants to do what she anticipates him telling them to do. 

Somehow she must have understood that he was going to act.  There are depths to their relationship that only they knew....

6-7 Six stoneware water pots were there, used by the Jews for ritual washings. Each held twenty to thirty gallons. Jesus ordered the servants, “Fill the pots with water.” And they filled them to the brim.

These pots were huge.  Filling 6 of them from a well or where ever else one got water was no small task or easy task as it would seem this was a pointless exercise and was not going to do anything to solve the problem of lack of wine. 

8 “Now fill your pitchers and take them to the host,” Jesus said, and they did.

This was perhaps the most difficult of all to do but they did it. At what point did the water turn into wine?  We are not told but we are told it was the best wine. 

9-10 When the host tasted the water that had become wine (he didn’t know what had just happened but the servants, of course, knew), he called out to the bridegroom, “Everybody I know begins with their finest wines and after the guests have had their fill brings in the cheap stuff. But you’ve saved the best till now!”

11 This act in Cana of Galilee was the first sign Jesus gave, the first glimpse of his glory. And his disciples believed in him.

Oh Lord, you so encourage me from this your first miracle here on this earth as a man, that you have the very very best wine.  It pales in comparison to even the best joy that we can experience in life.

It was given, quietly, in a hidden sort of way, through what appeared to be a tedious, monotonous and even fruitless task.  It was not given in a flash of supernatural or spectacular action but in obedience.  

Oh Lord, thank you, you are speaking to me that as a take the time to fill my heart and mind with the water of your word, it may seem monotonous or even tedious and non effective at the time but that you can turn this into the greatest of joys.  The Joy in YOU that is sweeter than anything else. 

Thank  you Lord, this is so encouraging to me because so many of the things that one can usually find joy in are seemingly out of reach for me now.  In a world where joy is found in achievement, intellect, relationships, wealth, ease, comfort,youth, beauty and health, YOU can give us joy even in a season of life when we are experiencing the failing of any or all of these things.  You reassure us that your Joy is not cheap or shallow but is rich and sustaining and BETTER!

Help us to continue to contemplate on YOU and know you ina deeper and fuller way. 

Praise you Lord


a great opportunity to help us take one verse per day to hold onto Hope in you at 
http://unafamiliaalaskena.blogspot.com/p/think-on-these-things.html