When Your Spiritual Life Feels Dry
Thirst is not the absence of faith. Often it is the first sign of it.
Almost every believer goes through it sooner or later. Prayer that once felt like conversation now feels like talking to the ceiling. The Bible that once seemed alive reads like an instruction manual. Worship songs that used to move you leave you unmoved. You still believe, but the warmth has gone, and you are not sure why.
Christians have used many names for this experience: dryness, a wilderness season, the dark night of the soul. Whatever we call it, it can be frightening. We wonder whether we have done something wrong, whether God has withdrawn or whether our faith was ever real.
Scripture does not hide this experience. In fact, it gives us words for it.
The Psalmist Knew This Place
Psalm 42 opens with a picture of longing: "As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?" (Psalm 42:1–2). A hart is a deer. The writer pictures an animal desperate for water in a dry land.
The psalmist remembers better days, when he "went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise" (Psalm 42:4). Now his tears have been his food "day and night," while others ask him, "Where is thy God?" (Psalm 42:3).
David prayed something similar in the wilderness of Judah: "O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is" (Psalm 63:1).
Notice what these men did with their dryness. They did not pretend it away, and they did not walk away from God. They brought their thirst to Him. The very fact that you are troubled by spiritual dryness is a sign of spiritual life. A dead soul does not thirst.
Some Causes of Dryness
Not every dry season has the same cause, and it helps to ask gently what might be going on.
Unconfessed sin. David described the weight of hidden sin: "When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long... my moisture is turned into the drought of summer" (Psalm 32:3–4). Sometimes dryness is the Holy Spirit's way of drawing our attention to something we have refused to deal with. If that is so, the path back is confession, and God promises to meet it with forgiveness (1 John 1:9).
Neglect. Sometimes we have simply drifted. Prayer has been squeezed out by busyness, Scripture by screens, fellowship by fatigue. A garden that is not watered will wilt, and that is no mystery.
Exhaustion and grief. Our bodies and emotions affect our spiritual sense. After his great victory on Mount Carmel, Elijah collapsed under a juniper tree and asked to die. God's first answer was neither a rebuke nor a sermon. He gave Elijah sleep and food, twice (1 Kings 19:5–8). Sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is rest.
A season of deepening. And sometimes there is no clear cause at all. God may be weaning us from dependence on feelings, teaching us to trust Him when we cannot sense Him. Faith that holds on in the dark is growing strong roots.
Keep Going to the Well
The most important thing to do in a dry season is to keep coming to God, even when it feels like nothing is happening. Feelings are a poor measure of what God is doing.
Jesus once stood in the temple on the last day of a great feast and cried out, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink" (John 7:37). His invitation is for thirsty people. It assumes we will feel thirsty sometimes, and it tells us where to go.
So keep reading, even if it is only a psalm a day. Keep praying, even if your prayers are short and honest. Tell God plainly, "I feel nothing right now, but I am here." Keep gathering with God's people, even when you would rather stay home. Spiritual disciplines are like the channels that carry water to a field. On some days you will barely notice the flow, but you are keeping the channel open.
Talk Back to Your Soul
Psalm 42 contains a remarkable phrase, repeated twice: "Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance" (Psalm 42:5).
The psalmist is not merely listening to his feelings. He is speaking to them. He reminds himself of what is true and tells his soul where to put its hope. "I shall yet praise him." The day of praise has not arrived, but he is sure it will.
You can do the same. When your heart says God is far away, answer it with Scripture: "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee" (Hebrews 13:5). When it says nothing will change, answer it with the faithfulness of God in the past. Preaching the truth to yourself is one of the most practical tools for a dry season.
The Rain Will Come
Dry seasons do not last forever. Isaiah records God's promise: "For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour my spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring" (Isaiah 44:3).
Many believers look back on their wilderness seasons as times when their faith became more real. They learned that God was holding them when they could not feel Him, and that their relationship with Him rested on His faithfulness rather than their emotions.
If you are thirsty right now, do not be ashamed of it. Admit it to God. Ask a trusted friend to pray with you. Keep coming to the well. The One who invites the thirsty has not changed, and He will not send you away empty.
