FINDING JOY IN A STORM-TORN WORLD
This past Thursday, I had the opportunity to ride with 2 deputies in the Oviedo area. That night, I rode with a deputy as he patrolled his area and one of the things we did was drive around behind many of the stores and shopping centers to make sure there were no problems there. Of the patrol that night, one store area sticks in my mind. I remember it because of what the deputy I was riding with told me.
As we pulled around the side of one shopping center he pointed out a particular parking space and told me about a young man, 19 or 20 years old, they found there shortly after hurricane Charlie. He told me another deputy had found the young man there, in his car, with one end of a garden hose connected to his tail pipe and the other end stuck in his car window. The man was attempting to commit suicide. Fortunately, he was found in time and his life was saved.
As he continued the account, he said that there were many people who attempted suicide shortly after the storms. It broke my heart when I thought about the many people in our area who have resorted to such tactics because of a few physical setbacks.
The Lord arranged it, however, for me to take that ride the day after I read about a woman by the name of Mabel. Let me introduce you to her through the words of Tom Schmidt, the man who told her story.
“The state-run convalescent hospital is not a pleasant place. It is large, understaffed, and overfilled with senile and helpless and lonely people who are waiting to die. On the brightest of days it seems dark inside, and it smells of sickness and stale urine. I went there once or twice a week for 4 years, but I never wanted to go there, and I always left with a sense of relief. It is not the kind of place one gets used to.
On this particular day I was walking in a hallway that I had not visited before, looking in vain for a few who were alive enough to receive a flower and a few words of encouragement. This hallway seemed to contain some of the worst cases, strapped onto carts or into wheelchairs and looking completely helpless.
As I neared the end of the hallway, I saw an old woman strapped up in a wheelchair. Her face was an absolute horror. The empty stare and white pupils of her eyes told me that she was blind. The large hearing aid over one ear told me that she was almost deaf. One side of her face was being eaten by cancer. There was a discolored and running sore covering part of one cheek, and it had pushed her nose to one side, dropped one eye, and distorted her jaw so that what should have been the corner of her mouth was the bottom of her mouth. As a consequence, she drooled constantly. I was told later that when new nurses arrived, the supervisors would send them to feed this woman, thinking that if they could stand this sight they could stand anything in the building. I also learned that this woman was 89 years old and that she had been here, bedridden, blind, nearly deaf, and alone, for 25 years. This was Mabel.
I don’t know why I spoke to her-she looked less likely to respond than most of the people I saw in that hallway. But I put a flower in her hand and said, ‘Here is a flower for you. Happy Mother’s Day.’ She held the flower up to her face and tried to smell it, and then she spoke. And much to my surprise, her words, although somewhat garbled because of her deformity, were obviously produced by a clear mind. She said, ‘Thank you. It’s lovely. But can I give it to someone else? I can’t see it, you know, I’m blind.’
I said, ‘Of course,’ and I pushed her in her chair back down the hallway to a place where I thought I could find some alert patients. I found one, and I stopped the chair. Mabel held out the flower and said, ‘Here, this is from Jesus.’
That was when it began to dawn on me that this was not an ordinary human being. Later, I wheeled her back to her room and learned more about her history. She had grown up on a small farm that she managed with only her mother until her mother died. Then she ran the farm alone until 1950 when her blindness and sickness sent her to the convalescent hospital. For 25 years she got weaker and sicker, with constant headaches, backaches, and stomachaches, and then the cancer came too. Her 3 roommates were all human vegetables who screamed occasionally but never talked. They often soiled their bedclothes, and because the hospital was understaffed, especially on Sundays when I usually visited, the stench was often overpowering.
Mabel and I became friends over the next few weeks, and I went to see her once or twice a week for the next 3 years. Her first words to me were usually an offer of hard candy from a tissue box near her bed. Some days I would read to her from the Bible, and often when I would pause she would continue reciting the passage from memory, word-for-word. On other days I would take a book of hymns and sing with her, and she would know all the words of the old songs. For Mabel, these were not merely exercises in memory. She would often stop in mid-hymn and make a brief comment about lyrics she considered particularly relevant to her own situation. II never heard her speak of loneliness or pain except in the stress she placed on certain lines in certain hymns. …
During one hectic week of final exams I was frustrated because my mind seemed to be pulled in 10 directions at once with all the things that I had to think about. The question occurred to me, ‘What does Mabel have to think about-hour after hour, day after day, week after week, not even able to know if it’s day or night?’ So I went to her and asked, ‘Mabel, what do you think about when you lie here?’
And she said, ‘I think about my Jesus.’
I sat there, and thought for a moment about the difficulty, for me, of thinking about Jesus for even 5 minutes, and I asked, ‘What do you think about Jesus?’ She replied slowly and deliberately as I wrote…:
I think about how good he’s been to me. He’s been awfully good to me in my life, you know…. I’m one of those kind who’s mostly satisfied…. Lots of folks would think I’m kind of old-fashioned. But I don’t care. I’d rather have Jesus. He’s all the world to me.
And then Mabel began to sing an old hymn:
Jesus is all the world to me, My life, my joy, my all.
He is my strength from day to day, Without him I would fall.
When I am sad, to him I go. No other one can cheer me so.
When I am sad, He makes me glad. He’s my friend.
[Quoted in The Life You’ve Always Wanted. Expanded edition, By John Ortberg. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002, 22-24]
My friend, do you see the contrast? On one hand, you have a young man who because of a storm and a setback, wanted to take his life. On the other hand, you have a woman, with all the pain and loneliness the world could send her way, singing about Jesus for more than 25 years. What’s the difference? The difference is the joy the Lord gives. One has it and the other does not, and let me tell you, in that area, the world is filled with the haves & the have-nots.
This morning I would like to show you how you can become a “Have”. I would like to share how you can find joy in a storm-torn world.
- Read John 15:1-11
> John 15:11 These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.
Do you see Jesus’ desire? He said He wants His joy to be in you and for your joy to be complete.
Many people today believe that Jesus came bringing nothing but rules and regulations. Many believe Jesus was simply a man of sorrow and judging by the words and faces of some who claim to be Christians today, they are carrying on that tradition. But Jesus was a joy-bringer. The angels, announcing His birth said, “I bring you good tidings of great joy.” Jesus Himself said in John 10:10 I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. And here in John 15:11 Jesus says, “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full. The Christian life is a joy-filled life, when lived as God intended it. Paul himself says that joy is one of the fruits of the Spirit.
Sadly, many today are not living the joy-filled life. Sadly, some are so overcome and overwhelmed by the world that they cannot remember their last joy-filled day. What is it that so easily steals our joy? There are far more joy-stealers than I have time to cover this morning, so I will share just a few.
I. JOY STEALERS
1. DISCONNECTEDNESS will steal your joy
- John 15:4-5
Jesus is the source of all joy. If you are not connected to Him, if He is not the Lord of your life, you will not have a joy-filled life. You may find happiness from time to time, but never true & lasting joy. “Apart from Me, you can do nothing.”
2. DISOBEDIENCE will steal your joy
- John 15:10
> Psalm 51:12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation.
After sinning with Bathsheba, David didn’t lose his salvation, but He lost the joy of his salvation. Unconfessed sin in your life will steal your joy. I remember as a boy, walking through some of the pine forests in North Florida, hunting with my uncle. In some of the forests we walked through, we often saw trees with large gashes cut into their sides and pans placed under those gashes. The cuts in those trees were designed to cause the sap to drain and the pans caught the sap so their could collect it and make turpentine from it. My friend, every unconfessed sin in your life acts like another gash, slowly draining your joy …
3. DISCONTENTEDNESS & DISTRACTIONS will steal your joy.
> Proverbs 23:4-5 Do not weary yourself to gain wealth, cease from your consideration of it. When you set your eyes on it, it is gone.
Always wanting more.
4. DISCIPLINARIANS will steal your joy
> Romans 6:14 : … you are not under the law, but under grace.
Some people cannot enjoy freedom in Christ, so they live with a bunch of rules & regulations & put that same stuff on other people because they can’t stand to see them happy either. Paul talked about some of those. He said life is not made up of what we eat, or drink or don’t eat & drink. The Christian life is not made up of rules and regulations.
I get so ticked when I see folks telling new believers that if they are going to be good Christians they can’t wear shorts or skirts shorter than this, or they can’t have their hair longer than this, or they can’t watch this or that, etc.
5. DISCOURAGERS will steal your joy
You often hear, “There are 2 kinds of people in the world. Those who see the glass ½ full and those who see the glass ½ empty.” I believe there is another. The discourager who complains that it isn’t bottled water. You know the ones. The people who have who have rejected joy and have decided to be victims. My friend, you and I are called to minister to those people, but if you are around them too much they can pull you down and steal your joy. I believe that’s one of the reasons Jesus often left the crowds and went off to be alone. He could only give so much before He needed to have His batteries recharged by the Father.
II. KEYS TO A JOY-FILLED LIFE
1. Connect to the source of joy
- John 15:5 You must become a Christian
2. Confess your sins – Get that barrier to joy taken care of.
3. Think on the good things
> Philippians 4:8 Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.
Discipline your mind to look at life from a biblical perspective. To a large extent, joy flows from a certain kind of thinking.
>Psalm 16:8-9 I have set the Lord always before me. Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices.
4. Find an encourager
> Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor. For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up.
5. Minister to others – Jesus came with a mission, a purpose. True joy comes only to those who have devoted their lives to something greater than personal happiness. Get busy helping others.
6. Decide you will rejoice regardless –
> Philippians 4:4 Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice. Nehemiah said, This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn or weep… for the joy of the Lord is your strength. You find strength, after you decide and begin rejoicing.
C. S. Lewis said, Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition, when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in the slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.
