Warning: Extreme Honesty Ahead. Proceed With Caution.

Deserts.

Dessert.

Funny how one letter’s placement makes it go from disgusting to delicious.


Moving on...

Have you ever had a season of life where you were spiritually dry? If not, I hate to be the bearer of bad news: its coming. We all experience periods when we can’t seem to hear God’s voice, His Word doesn’t move us like it used to, and we just don't experience worship like we have in the past.

Unfortunately, the past few months have found me (with the exception of a handful of days) in that type of season. I might even venture to say that this is the driest, longest desert I have walked through at this point of my journey with Christ. While I know some of the desert is because of bad choices and wrong responses to things, I also know that this goes beyond those issues: God has led me to this point.

Typically, in the deserts I’ve already traveled through, there are times when I feel completely empty. No matter how I try, I just cannot muster enough oomph to keep going as I had to that point in the desert. Last night was definitely one of those times! If I were to be transparent here, I’d have to tell you that I feel empty, broken, weak, and ineffective. Not really the adjectives I like to put when resumes ask for how I'd describe yourself.

Until last night, I’ve been trying to continue on as if everything was basically all right as far as others are concerned. While I think there’s a place for optimism and such with others, I’ve discovered how harmful that can be to my relationship with the Lord. As I laid my heart out completely before God last night, we reached some things that would’ve remained covered otherwise.

I won’t go into full detail (feel free to call/email me if you’d like, I just don’t want it all on here), but one of the biggest things is that for the past couple of weeks I haven’t really felt anything spiritually. As that reality started to move through my life, it became much harder for me to do things I typically enjoy, like spending time with Him in the Word or solid times in prayer or having fellowship with others. This desert’s heat has gotten to the point that more often than not, I can’t feel His presence with me. I know the truth that He will never leave me or forsake me, but it’s hard to really know that at times.

When feelings leave us, we’re left with character and discipline. I do not wake up feeling like spending time in the Word: it is up to the discipline I’ve established through the time before this desert. C.S. Lewis in Screwtape Letters describes these troughs as a time when God is removing from us what was simply on the surface to expose and purify what was underneath. And that God is looking for that discipline to show through. My Growth Community reminded me of that last night. Our faith must be tested. James 1 (and many other places) describes that after a period of building, we will be tested in order to solidify what is pleasing to the Lord and to remove what is not pleasing to the Lord. Only through this process of refinement by fire is our faith perfected so that we lack nothing (James 1.4).

I hate fire. I don’t know if you know this, but fire is painful.

As a believer, our deepest desire is to be pleasing to the Lord. Superficial desires may conflict with that, but at our core, we desire to please Him because we have been made a new creation. With my current reality of not having the support of inclinations, it’s extremely difficult to tell if I am pleasing to Him right now. I just don’t see anything that could be pleasing in His eyes. But, only by His grace and prior training, I have continued in hopes of seeing His face and finding His presence again. Last night, I confessed my fear of not pleasing Him because my heart and attitude aren’t what I know they ought to be. Even though I’m doing what I should, my motivation is not always the desire to do something but a knowledge that I need to do so.

My prayer time ended without really hearing anything from the Lord, which was disappointing but not entirely surprising. As I was trying to fall asleep, He brought a passage to mind that I hadn’t thought of in a long time: John 14. Well, actually, He brought the content to mind and then I found the passage. It’s a conversation between Jesus and the 12 during the Last Supper. Jesus has washed His disciples’ feet and predicted Peter’s denial. Jesus and Judas are both aware of what’s going down that night. Jesus just explained that He is the way, the truth, and the life. Then, starting in v. 15, He promises the Holy Spirit. Verses 15 through 21 have grown very important to me last night and this morning:

“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. After a little while, the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me; because I live, you will live also. In that day, you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.” (NASB, emphasis added)

Though I’m not saying I want to stay like this for any longer than absolutely necessary, I am so thankful for this assurance. Right now, I do not have inclinations on which to rely. I don’t have the feelings that help me get up and spend time in the Word and in prayer when my alarm goes off in the morning. But with His help, I will persevere and press on. Because He has commanded that I need to do so.

I so desperately desire to please Him. Until He leads me out of this desert, I pray that He would be pleased with this: I love Him, so I will keep His commands.

For anyone else who is making their way through the desert (or for when the Lord leads you through a season of dryness), remember this: the walk of a disciple of Christ is not based on feelings. Our feelings are fickle and deceiving. They are useful, but they are not paramount. May we remember that our Lord is pleased when we are obedient in the desert. When we are dry and weak but we walk on in pursuit of Him, He is pleased.

May we also remember that times in the desert are a season. Perhaps a long season, but a season all the same. This will pass. God will restore and heal us from the wounds we receive in the fight of the desert. Because that’s what it is, I think: a fight.

I feel weak and defenseless, but fighting in His strength is what I am called to do.

May He cover me and fight for me (including through other believers), because this desert cannot be survived on my own.



Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. Isaiah 40.31