When nothing energizes

So a thought crossed my mind upon reading a friend of mine's blog.
Meaninglessness in life.  For the existentialist this is of course to be expected, but for someone with religion, faith or what have you, it is unexpected, and the hardest part is dealing with it.  Often times I know I have felt this way.  My thought process is this:  "OK, I have a problem; I feel little.  I need to fix the problem; I need more faith because if I had faith I wouldn't feel this 'lessness'.  I need to feed my faith by going to that which I know that feeds it (in my case Christian Scripture)."
I'm won't lie, sometimes, most times, it just does not work.  I am seeking joy, fulfillment, experience and I must admit Scripture doesn't really give that.  But, it does give me eyes to see it and know it.  However, in these times I feel listless and need to be able to see why is it that when I go Scripture to be inspired I don't find it working?  I'll admit there is one reason that it doesn't work: legalism.  I am only doing it to try and make some magic happen.  The other times I don't know, but I think a fair assessment would be that its not that I need to have my eyes opened but that I need to be in a place to be able to use them.  Often times this past semester I got incredibly bogged down in school; talk about lifeless, studying and learning, and as much as I absolutely love it, it just gets monotonous, without any reprieve. Then the time of the week comes where I am exhausted and drained, and I have to go to my internship at the retirement community.  Let me tell you, there is nothing more lame than having to go to an internship when you have absolutely no desire to.

But then again, for whatever reason its rejuvenating.  I'll admit at times it was hard this past semester, trying to get up the energy to go out and love people, but the right mindset is when I need.  My mindset when it works is selfless and serving, thinking about the small things I am doing, because they are small things, to further the work of the chaplain ministry of the community; when its hard its being worried about if these small things amount to anything and if its just a big waste of my time.  I wonder, though, what will it be like when I am doing ministry full-time?  The main question is how can I find joy when I get bogged down in the things find joy in, like learning, theology and ministry?  Right now I find it by getting out of what I get bogged down in and getting into a place to give myself away, to serve and love, and even though I am completely and totally drained at times, giving myself to serve people seems to give me life and energy.  That's something that I want to do just as much now as when I am older.  Its something I want to do with Alison when we are married, something to do together with my kids when we have them.