Choose Joy by Kay WarrenSample

Day Six

Drinking from Dry Wells

Let’s just admit it because we’ve all done it more times than we can count. We’ve expected people, places, possessions, and positions to give us joy. They have given us short-term happiness but left us gasping for water. Desperate for relief, we have tried to dig our own cisterns, “broken cisterns that can hold no water” (Jeremiah 2:13). Doing so has left us exhausted, to the point of despair, even hopelessness. 

God says, “It’s okay; that’s what’s supposed to happen.” What? God wants me to experience despair? Only to bring you face-to-face with how utterly inadequate you are at providing water for yourself and to point the way to himself. 

Here is the foundational truth that each of us needs to remember: God is the only true source of joy. God will be there when all else is shaking. He will be there when the people you love let you down or leave you or die. He will be there when the place you thought would make you happy doesn’t satisfy any longer. He will be there when your position changes or is given to someone else. He will be there when your personality just isn’t enough. He is the spring of living water that will never run dry. 

That’s why we need to saturate our minds with God’s truths. The more we know and understand God, the more easily we recognize that the “joy of the Lord” is our only true strength (Nehemiah 8:10). 

I used to believe I needed to feel differently before I could think differently. But the formula is reversed: Our thinking changes first, our actions come next, and our feelings follow. 

God tells us how we must think and how we must act, knowing that our feelings will always be the last to fall in line. To have the settled assurance of joy, we must hold convictions about who God is. We must have right thinking about him. Only then will we seek what will truly bring us joy. 

Father, you know I am dry and empty. Yet I have been digging wells to try to find water. Forgive me for forsaking you, the spring of living water. Forgive me for looking anywhere else for true fulfillment. Help me to turn to you first for satisfaction. In the name of Jesus, amen.