Sometimes our souls feel dry. We don’t feel excited about the Lord or angry with him. We might not be suffering intensely, but we are not very joyful either. How do we worship God when we feel so dry, spiritually and emotionally? Please join me as I examine the lives of people in the Bible and even my own life during times of spiritual drought.
I wondered if the dryness of my soul came from unconfessed sin, the way it did with some Bible saints, like King David and King Saul. David suffered dryness due to sin he hid. He secretly committed adultery and murder, but he thought no one, not even God knew about it. He implies this in Psalm 51. And in Psalm 32:3-4 David admits that instead of the joy of the Lord he felt spiritual drought and stress: “For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.”
Saul did not sin secretly but rebelled overtly against the Lord. He made sacrifices that only the priests were supposed to make (1Sam.13:2-14.) He refused to kill all the evil, enemy Amalekites and their livestock (1 Samuel chapter 15.) Eventually God refused to speak to Saul anymore, because he refused to surrender to him (1Sam.28:5-6.) Saul stooped so low he went to a witch to learn the future, since he was unwilling to repent before God (1Samuel chapter 28.)
In both of these cases, these Kings of Israel had sinned against God and had not confessed their sins. As a result, God did not speak to them. They lost the joy of God’s fellowship. Instead they had the company of their guilt-wracked hearts and minds. And a guilty and shame-based conscience is bad company bringing with it many horrors. Saul became tormented by an evil spirit (1Sam.16:14.) And David spoke of many illnesses and sorrow he suffered when he hid his sins (in Psalm 32 and 51.) So hiding sins will not bring the living waters Jesus promised in John 4:14, “But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.” Instead, our hidden sin will bring a dryness or leanness of the soul.
I confess my sins throughout the day, as the Lord convicts me. And in case I missed any sins, I ponder my prior day as I prayer-journal. Then I confess anything I had not repented of (or if I think I did not repent with sincerity over that sin.) In this way I do my best to not harbor any unconfessed sins. But I wondered if I might have over looked some sin, perhaps something that my flesh resisted giving up.
I thought back over the last few months, to see if I could find sins. Our church is always asking for more volunteers and even asking those who volunteer to take on more shifts. I volunteer 2-3 times per month in our church’s Kidzkrew, our children’s ministry. When I serve, I need to go to church early, and then I cannot sit in the sanctuary with my husband and daughters. My daughters often do not want to go to church then, but they offer to watch it online, the next day, since that is what I do, although they like to watch on their phones in their own room. And if my daughters do not go with me to church, my husband says he does not want to go either and says he will watch online too. God is not a priority for my husband, so this is especially hard for him when I am not with him and our family in the sanctuary. Plus I know how easily they can be distracted at home. This has been hard for them, so I have not committed to serve every week. This enables me to sit in the sanctuary with my family about half of the month. In a few years my daughters will go to college, and so these last two years with them are priceless. Thus I sensed the Lord saying I was not sinning by not volunteering more.
I will not bore you with details, but there were other matters in a similar vein, where I am volunteering, but I also sense that I should have limits so I can still serve my family too. I remember the Bible verse 1Tim5:8, “He who will not provide for his family is worse than an infidel,” and although I am not neglecting literally feeding my family, I do sense that I have a spiritual obligation and joy in being with my family in the sanctuary.
Yet Satan can take our church’s need for volunteers and turn my willingness to serve into a legalistic obligation where I end up spiritually starving my own family. God has called us to balance. But if I did not have unconfessed sins, then why did I feel so dry?
The prophet Elijah came to my mind. In 1Kings19:5-8, God urged the exhausted Elijah to rest. God used an angel to bring him food. Elijah felt very dry spiritually. In verses 4b-5 we see that: “he asked that he might die, saying, ‘It is enough; now O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers.’ And he lay down and slept under a broom tree. And behold, an angel touched him and said to him, ‘Arise and eat’.” Part of Elijah’s spiritual dryness came from doing so much for the Lord and then from over-exertion when he made a long journey.
He needed to rest and eat and then later receive God’s encouragement. When he had rested he told the Lord about how hard he had worked for God and how he thought there were no other believers left. God listened, and then gave Elijah a new project and then reassured him there were 7,000 believers in Israel alone (not counting the southern Kingdom of Judah.) When I thought of Elijah’s physical tiredness, I realized this was what I was feeling. In the last month, I have had trouble with nocturnal leg cramps and have awakened at hours of 3, 4, and 5am and have been up for the rest of the day. I normally do not get up until 6am, and the loss of sleep alone was exhausting. My blood test results just came back, and my thyroid levels are much too low on my current prescription (low thyroid causes exhaustion.) I will need a stronger prescription, because for the last two months, I have been running low due to being on the wrong dose of thyroid medicine. I will need to meet with my specialist to get me back onto the right dose, but I’ll be dragging physically until that happens.
On top of this, my girls had a big dance recital, and so I was running around getting them supplies, and even volunteering to be back stage with them from lunch time to bed time on show day. Then we were finishing the 10th grade (we finish in March and then begin the first quarter of the next school year this month too.) There was so much work to complete the Algebra 2 and some last minute language arts projects. Then we began to look at the local community college to see if the girls could enroll in any “dual enrollment” courses in the fall. We also got the SAT and ACT practice tests and began to work on them to see if there are any subjects where the girls need to do some academic remediation. All of this was time consuming.
When I considered everything, and especially when I prayed about everything, I realized I was simply very tired, physically. I am amazed by how down a person can feel, simply from physical exhaustion! But I also feel blessed to know people like Elisha suffered this way, and God was so kind and gentle with him. God did not yell at Elisha but used a gentle whisper. God first fed Elisha and then told him to sleep before requiring more work from Elisha. This is what I sense God telling me too. This is not a season to add more work, even godly volunteer work. I need to be faithful with what God has already given me.
Oh, how easy it is to fall into Satan’s temptation to think we are sinning when we are tired. How easy it is to think we need to do even more work, yet there are times when God says we are already doing enough. If you grew up in a legalistic home like I did, you may fall for some of these wrong ideas too. But how kind God is to use the Scripture with passages like the one about Elisha’s experience after he defeated the evil prophets of Baal. When I think of God’s gentle response to Elisha, I can rest assured that God is being gentle with me while I am a bit depleted physically. God has told me I am doing enough, and that is nourishment for my soul. So I will trust that I am just where God wants me to be, and I will relax, even in this seemingly dry time in my year. I will find rest and I will also find my energy again. God is good, and I feel his peace.
I pray we have blessed you with today’s post, and if you have any stories of your own to share with me, please do. We love to hear from you all!