Suffering And Pain: Unexpected UnhurrySample

Unexplained Dryness . . . Explained 

Just as God’s grace helps us through seasons of waiting, God also helps us through times of dryness. And I’m not talking about the kind of dryness that comes if we decide not to seek God, if we choose not to abide in him, if we elect to let busyness keep us from the kind of communion with him that fills the cup of our lives. If we make such choices, we will experience dryness, but it’s a dryness that has a discernible cause. It’s a dryness we can do something about. 

The dryness that I’m describing is an unexplained dryness. We are seeking God. We are still entering into the kinds of practices that once opened us to God’s refreshment, but we are finding ourselves not at an oasis but in a wilderness. No matter how hard we seek, we find ourselves still thirsting. 

I believe that there is a point in our spiritual journey when the Spirit will lead us into the desert just as he did Jesus. We hear the Spirit calling to us in the restlessness and weariness of our own heart. But the first time the Spirit speaks to us when we are in that state, we usually don’t recognize that the voice is his. We assume we’re just not doing enough to be spiritually healthy and strong in soul, so we take a deep breath and seek Jesus with greater determination than before. And still the dryness can continue.

I’ve seen, however, that when we’re in the seemingly interminable dry places, God is at work. God is deepening our longings for him. The Lord has helped me see that if our longings for him were always easily fulfilled, those longings might not become more deeply rooted. In other words, when we live with unfilled longings for a while, if we feel a thirst that is not quickly quenched, and if we resist the urge to escape into empty activities and false promises of refreshment or fullness, our longings for God are deepened. And those are longings he loves to fulfill . . . in his time.

Lord, when dryness comes despite my obedience, help me remember not only that you are growing and strengthening my longing for you, but also that in your good time you will provide water for my thirsty heart.

From An Unhurried Life by Alan Fadling