Faith In Dry Seasons - By Kate Brown

As you walk the journey of the Christian life, there are times where you’ll experience flourishing growth. You’re in the Word regularly, excited about spending time in prayer, enjoy fellowship with other believers, and feel the comforting presence of God. Your faith is strong and this bolsters your commitment to following God’s commands. Times like these are sweet– like the vibrant green of a lush garden bursting with ripe fruit to be enjoyed. 

There will also be times of what some call a spiritual drought. Your heart feels like cracked earth, parched and ready to crumble into dust at the slightest breeze. Your desire to study God’s word has waned, your mind wanders during prayer, going to church just seems like a hassle, and more often than not, there’s an overwhelming sense of deep loneliness. As a believer, it’s hard to confront these thoughts and emotions because a great deal of shame often accompanies them. Why does this happen? How can we, who have been redeemed and bought at a great price, be this way? What can we do in the midst of seasons where our faith feels fragile, weak, and stale? How does God look at us during these times of struggle? Will it always be this way? 

There are many different reasons that times of drought may arise. Trials and suffering can cause you to feel isolated and cut off from God and his people; you don’t know what to pray, what scripture to read, or how to bear your soul to those in your local church. No one knows what to say or how to provide comfort. Spiritual drought can also bring to light areas where you may have been neglecting God’s commands or living in direct disobedience to his Word. Seasons of depression may bring storm clouds that drive you into a valley of darkness so deep that it blocks out the light and hope that is so often found in Scripture. But sometimes, you may not be able to pinpoint a cause, and there might not be anything in particular that drives you to experience a season of spiritual struggle. 

Help in Dry Seasons

In the midst of life’s changing circumstances and the ebb and flow of your spiritual journey, one aspect of life remains unchanged: God’s promises. No matter what changes we may face in life, we are met with this immovable promise: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Heb. 13:8).  Our faithfulness to him shifts like sand–his faithfulness to us is rock solid. Our love is imperfect and inconstant–his perfect love never changes. Though we may wander or grow spiritually apathetic at times, he calls out to us, “I will never fail you. I will never abandon you” (Heb. 13:5). When walking through a dry season, we can rest assured that God’s love for us is not based on our emotions or our works but is steadfast. He will never abandon you, but has promised to be with you always, and he gives us the Holy Spirit as our advocate and comforter (Jn. 15:26). 

Not only does God give us himself, the greatest form of comfort we could ever receive, he also gives us a family–generations and generations of believers who have walked this path before us. When you are tempted to believe that you are alone and the only Christian who has ever struggled with spiritual apathy, open your Bible and drink in the story of God’s faithfulness in the lives of the saints. Read biographies of missionaries who gave up everything for the sake of the gospel and in whom God did mighty deeds. Read of their sufferings, their sorrows, their sins, their trials, their despair, their desert seasons, and know that beyond a shadow of a doubt that God was faithful every single moment. As his child, he is faithful to you, too. The same promises God gave to those in Scripture, he makes to you. In the midst of spiritual drought, drink from this truth and let it water your soul, reviving and refreshing your affections. 

The oasis in the desert of spiritual drought is the hope of heaven. One day, we will be with God, released from the burdens of this life. When we step into heaven, all that has weighed us down–selfishness, greed, anger, pride, laziness, apathy, jealousy, hatred, murder, lies, suffering, struggle, and so many more– will be eradicated from our hearts forever. No longer will we fight the temptations and struggles of the flesh. No longer will we experience the consequences of sin. Suffering will be no more. We will open our eyes and instantly be in the presence of God– and we will be able to stand before him because of the purifying blood of Christ. What a hope to cling to in the dry seasons! In The Last Battle, C.S. Lewis paints a picture of what this will feel like: “The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.” When the dust of the desert threatens to choke us, blind us, and cause us to stumble as we make our way, we can look to the morning. We can face dry seasons clinging to the promise that “though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day” (2 Cor. 4:16).

Spiritual Disciplines in Times of Drought

I experienced my own dry season rather recently. I am in a phase of life that has me constantly on the go, and over the course of the last year, the demands and responsibilities of everyday life became all-consuming and exhausting. Slowly and without really noticing, I slipped out of daily spiritual habits and fell into a time of spiritual apathy. I struggled to desire to study and be in God’s Word. My prayer life dwindled away to practically nothing, and my usual excitement for the Lord’s Day morphed into frustration and resentment because as a ministry family, Sunday is typically one of our busiest days. These spiritual disciplines, that at one time kept my heart and mind refreshed and reminded of the truth of the gospel, were slowly left behind as I entered what felt like an endless desert. 

When we are thrust into a dry season, spiritual disciplines become difficult because it feels like our heart is not in it. And while of course spiritual disciplines do not save us or change the way God looks at us, they are a means by which we can experience the immovable and unchangeable grace of God in our lives. We shouldn’t forsake these means of grace simply because our affections are not turned towards these disciplines. We are forgetful people. Like the Israelites in their wilderness wanderings, we also have a tendency to forget God. In the podcast Things Unseen, Sinclair Ferguson describes our forgetfulness in this way: “I don’t mean that we become atheists. We don’t forget God in that sense. What I mean is, we forget what He’s like. And that sometimes means we end up thinking He has forgotten us. It’s one of the great paradoxes of spiritual life. We have forgotten Him, but we misinterpret reality and we think He has forgotten us.” In order to remember what God is like, it is important for our souls to continue engaging in Bible reading, prayer, and fellowship with other believers.

Knowing where to turn in Scripture during times such as these can be a challenge. To be reminded of who Jesus is, read through the gospels. To remember the faithfulness of God, read through the historical books of the Old Testament. To find comfort and reassurance in dark valleys, sing with the psalmist, “O God, you are my God; I earnestly search for you. My soul thirsts for you; my whole body longs for you in this parched and weary land where there is no water” (Ps. 63: 1). Persevere in the reading of Scripture to help you remember the love, goodness, mercy, and grace of God.

Prayer is another way we can turn our affections back to the things of the Lord. In my season of drought, prayer became the most difficult habit to continue. My mind tended to wander and I often came before the Lord not knowing what to pray. My words felt vain and empty and I often gave in to the temptation to skip prayer. But the beautiful thing about prayer is that God already knows what is on our hearts and minds. He wants us to come to him and lay the cares of hearts at his feet–and this includes our spiritual apathy. When you come before God in prayer while feeling like you’d rather be doing something else, confess that to him and pray for him to change your heart. Plead with him to help you turn towards spiritual things with zeal and fervor once more. He is faithful and he can and will do it! One of my other favorite resources for prayer is my leatherbound copy of Valley of Vision. When I approached a time of prayer with no words to express what was on my heart, this small book of prayers was such an encouragement. Let the prayers of fellow believers that have gone before you guide you into a sweet time of fellowship with your Creator. 

Lastly, continue to spend time worshiping with other believers on Sunday. The Christian life is one that is meant to be lived in community. As the bride of Christ, the Church is called to edify the believer in easy times and in hard times. Brothers and sisters in Christ are to “encourage each other and build each other up,” (1Thess. 5:11) and in order to do that, we must be in fellowship together regularly. When going to church feels like the last thing we want to do, remember that God has gifted you a family to bear you up when you are walking through a difficult season in your life as a means of his grace. 

Christ Meets Us in Desert Times

In her book, Everyday Faithfulness, Glenna Marshall reminds us that “Faithfulness is ordinary. It’s unremarkable. It plods. It is also precious in the sight of the God who works out lifelong sanctifying perseverance in your life for your good and his glory.” If you are in a dry season, your spiritual walk may feel more like a spiritual plod or crawl–and that’s okay. The joyously wondrous news of the gospel meets us in those moments. Christ, who knows your heart better than you do, meets us in the desert. He is with you when your heart feels shriveled and parched and the springs of joy have seemingly dried up. He is with you as you trudge through the blistering heat and sand storms of suffering, and his promises remain steadfast. Whether you walk through green pastures or the dry dust of desert times, your Good Shepherd is hemming you in behind and before and his promise is secure– he will never leave you.