If you’re like me, you love those times when your walk with the Lord feels amazing, and every time you open the Word, it’s like Scriptures just jump out at you with promises, encouragement, insight, etc.
But if you’re like me, you also get frustrated in times that aren’t like this. When you open the Word, and it just feels dry. Nothing hits you. Nothing jumps out at you, and you close the pages wondering if you even got anything out of it.
Sometimes I feel like this second scenario happens way too often and can last for way too long.
But one word that stands out to me in these paragraphs above is telling: “feel.”
So often, we evaluate our relationship with God on the basis of our feelings. If everything “feels” good, we must be walking closely with the Lord. But if it “feels” dry, it must mean something’s wrong.
While it’s certainly wise to “walk circumspectly,” as Ephesians 5:15 tells us—that is, to look carefully how we conduct our lives so we live wisely in a way that honors God—our feelings are not always trustworthy.
Consider, for example:
- Prov. 3:5 – Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding….
- Jeremiah 17:9 – The heart is deceitful above all things….
- Proverbs 28:26 – He who trusts in his own heart is a fool….
What I’ve found is that dry seasons are often times of tremendous growth that lead to deeper intimacy with God, but I often don’t recognize this growth or greater intimacy until much later—sometimes years later.
When we’re in a dry season, here are some good questions to ask to help determine if there truly is something on our part that needs changing or if this is a time when God is simply calling us to trust Him more deeply and not rely on our feelings.
- Have I believed in and confessed Christ as Savior and Lord of my life? This may sound basic, but we ignore the foundation at our peril.
- Am I spending time in the Word and in prayer? If you’re a reader of this blog, you know that spending time in the Word is easy for me; prayer, not so much. But both are essential.
- Is there unconfessed sin in my life? God’s love is fathomless whether we are in sin or not, but unconfessed sin, and sin we continue to willfully engage in, can cause our fellowship with God to become strained or distant. This does not mean we need to be perfect to enjoy intimacy with our Creator. But if we habitually and willfully continue to sin, God invites us to repent and draw near to Him once again.
- Have I obeyed the last thing God told me to do? H/t to the great Oswald Chambers for this one. One principle that seems repeated throughout his classic devotional is that our progress forward will be hindered if we haven’t obeyed the last thing God told us to do (my paraphrase).
I’m sure there are other questions that could be added to this list. But if we are believers in Christ, spending time in the Word and in prayer, resisting sin, and walking in obedience, then dry seasons should not alarm us.
Rather, they can invite us to more fully trust in and rely on the boundless love of God and the truth of His promises regardless of our feelings.