By: Carole L. Haines
Restore to me the joy of Your salvation and sustain me with a willing spirit. (Psalm 51:12 NASB)
I have been walking with Jesus for 50 years. You’d think I’d understand the concept of leaning on Him. But I am finding that I still have so much to learn about where my power and victory come from. They don’t come from me, all my efforts, all my striving. They come from leaning on Jesus. The world looks down on people who have crutches, things they need help with; but I don’t care what the world thinks. I am weak, I am frail and thin as paper sometimes, in my own strength. Jesus puts it this way:
4 Remain in Me, and I in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself but must remain in the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in Me. 5 I am the vine, you are the branches; the one who remains in Me, and I in him bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.
(John 15:4-5 NASB)
Apart from me you can do nothing! Absolutely nothing can I do apart from Christ. My very breath is a grace from Him. So why do I consistently forget to lean? In the opening Scripture, David cries out to God to restore his joy, to sustain him. This comes in a Psalm of deep repentance and regret over his sin with Bathsheba and the murder of Uriah, her husband (2 Samuel 11) That struck me this morning, my joy and very sustenance come from remaining in Jesus. I realized that I just need to keep coming to Him, or better yet, I need to never leave His side. He is always with me; I just forget to lean into His presence sometimes. The words restore and sustain, used in Psalm 51, are words or confession, admittance of need, and humble surrender. Restore means to bring back something lost. Sustain means to brace me, hold me up and support me.
Dearest Jesus, I need thee every hour. I have lost me joy along the path lately. I need you to bring back Your joy to me. You say, “These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.”(John 15:11)
Jesus I need Your very joy. I need Your sustenance in my life. I need You. I will keep showing up and trusting You to do as You have always done, restore and sustain me. Thank You, My King and My God.
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