Surviving the Dry Times - part 1

There is a corny old joke about a couple who had been married for 40 years, Harold and Harriet, driving down the road in an old Cadillac with a bench seat in front. Harriet suddenly said, “Harry, we don’t sit as close as we did when we first got married, and I don’t like it!” Harry drove silently for several seconds and then replied, “Harriet, I haven’t moved.”

Lately I’ve had a time in my spiritual life in which God seems far away. But you know, He’s in the driver’s seat and He hasn’t moved! Do you ever have these times when you feel empty, your heart feels cold, and God seems very distant?

The writers of the book of Psalms had times like these. Psalm 88:14, “O LORD, why do you cast my soul away? Why do you hide your face from me?” It is so painful for the child of God when it feels like God is hiding His face from us! In Psalm 42:9 we read, “I say to God, my rock: ‘Why have you forgotten me?”

The Psalmist points us toward help in these dry times: “My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you (Psalm 42:6).” One of the keys of enduring the dry times is remembering God and His work in our life. Now be warned, it does not work like “take two and call in the morning.” Psalm 77:3 is painfully real when it says, “When I remember God I moan; when I meditate, my spirit faints.” There are dark nights of the soul that are so deep that when we first try to turn to the Lord it just makes it more painful! No matter how dry or even painful that turning toward Christ may feel, it is what we need at those times!

Back in Psalm 42 we find wise spiritual direction; “These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I would go with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God with glad shouts and songs of praise, a multitude keeping festival.” He remembered times when he was spiritually with it! Times when the joy of the Lord filled his entire being. Times when he was doing effective ministry (“and lead them in procession to the house of God…).

I know from experience there are times when these memories temporarily make things worse. I contrast “the good times” with how bad it seems now and it seems all the more horrible. At those times what I need to do is to remember how good it was and that God hasn’t moved! That means it can be that good again.

Also, God hasn’t moved! He is still there! We may not feel His closeness, His love, His acceptance. But Christ said He would never leave us and never forsake us. The God who blessed us and used us wonderfully in the high tide is the same God who is silently holding us and sustaining us in the desert experience.