With Joy

With joy you will draw water from the well of salvation (Is. 12:3)

Before I had ever started reading the Bible, at a point of exhaustion and breakdown in my life, a counselor said to me, "Gayle, you cannot give yourself joy."  Now why this should have been such a revelation to me, I cannot tell you.  Looking back now, it seems to be a rather obvious conclusion.  And yet, I had spent a few years exploring ways to do just that!  I had looked into Transcendental Meditation, Yoga meditation, and The Power of Positive Thinking.  

Here's the problem:  With all of those methods, you actually have to DO them!  It reminds me of my mother complaining that when she bought her sewing machine, the salesman told her of all the wonderful things the machine could do.  "But it doesn't do any of those things," she said with a twinkle in her eye; "it just sits over there and does nothing!"  Yeah, I get it.  At the time I was looking for joy and inner peace, I had 3 small children who didn't get it -- no matter how tired I was, I was not going to nap during the day (or even at night most of the time.)  Nor was I going to sit down and ooom.  I remember how much I just wanted to read the Sunday paper with a cup of coffee!

Positive Thinking seemed to need a little reflection on my part, but the day I caught myself pouring a half-gallon of milk down the toilet when I had intended to put it in the refrigerator, I realized that I would be lucky just to get through the day sane; never mind "positive thinking."

Hearing the words, "You cannot give yourself joy" brought me up short!  Oh, really?   I looked up maybe for the first time in a long time, realizing the Source of Joy.  And I asked.   About six months after that, I received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit in the hospital, after being prayed over by my roommate, a 22-year old girl who had told me her own story of redemption.  Little did I realize at that time how effectively God had answered my prayer for joy!  

Now, some 43 years later, the joy that flooded my soul that day remains and has never left me!  I spontaneously started reading the Bible (another gift from the Holy Spirit), where I constantly find my joy renewed, and where I find references that strengthen me.  For example, Psalm 16 says:

My heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;

my body will also rest secure.....

You have made known to me the path of life;

you will fill me with joy in your presence,

with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

I think the first reference I stumbled upon, though, was Isaiah 12:3:  With joy, you will draw water from the well of salvation.  I remember reading about someone who drew a small flower next to verses she wanted to recall, and that was my very first "flower" in the bible I was then using.  Since then I have bought another bible, and I think that may be the only flower in the new one, although there are multiple underlines and notations now.  I was so thirsty for that water of joy that I actually jumped for joy when I read John 4 -- the woman at the well.  

What she needed most desperately was joy.  She, having had 5 husbands, went to the well a mile and half outside her town.  Presumably there was another well in the town visited by the respectable women who looked down on her.  She went at noon; presumably, they went early in the morning to fetch the necessary water for the day.  And she was alone there.  Jesus' words to her:  If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.....the water I give [you]  will become in [you] a spring of water welling up to eternal life.  

If we knew that the name of that living water was JOY, would we not want to drink from it every day?  But we cannot give it to ourselves; it is a Gift!