Sometimes when you’re in a dark place, you think you’ve been buried. But, you’ve actually been planted. — Christine Caine

If you’ve read the Old Testament, you’ve probably come across the phrase, “it came to pass.” It appears over and over again, whether it’s mentioning the flood waters covering the earth or God giving the Promised Land to the Israelites. Notice the phrase is not “it came to stay.” The same goes for your spiritual valley. It will not be like this forever. It will pass.

But until it does, we’re in it. And what we do in the midst of it often determines the outcome. When we are in a season of feeling far from God, we need to look at how God is growing us and changing us. Here are a couple of byproducts of spiritual droughts. 

Increased Empathy
Chances are you’ve spoken with a friend who has gone through their own struggle spiritually. Just hearing them share may have lightened your load and encouraged you to stay the course. And because of your own journey, you’ll be able to do the same for someone else. It’s important to share with others the things we’ve walked through so that they can be encouraged. 

Deeper Intimacy

When difficulties come our way, we either run from God or to God. If we run from Him, we’ll never know what He wanted to show us during this season. But, if we run to Him, we get to know Him better, love Him more deeply, and trust Him more wholeheartedly. If we never needed comfort, we wouldn’t get to know the Comforter. 

We have to realize that we can’t overcome any of this in our own strength. It’s actually when we admit we are weak that we find His strength in abundance. We discover a new level of power in our lives—the same power that raised Christ from the dead is actually available to us at all times. 

While none of us look forward to these difficult times in our lives, there’s so much spiritual growth on the other side. Maybe you lost your job or a relationship in your life, and it really impacted you. But once you are on the other side of this season, you’ll be able to look back and see where God was working and how He was changing you.

We want out of these spiritual dry spells so desperately, but maybe we should embrace them instead. We can look toward the future outcome of what God will do in and through us as we trust Him when we literally can’t see our next step. Let’s take it anyway. He will light the path the moment we lift our foot in faith. 

Reflect

• In what ways has your challenging season helped you see the bigger picture God has in store?
• What step of faith do you need to take today that you’re hesitant to take?

Trusting God’s plan is the only secret I know in the gentle art of not freaking out. — Lysa Terkeurst

After reading the first two days of this Plan, our hope is that you’ll be encouraged that this spiritual drought you’re wading through is common to all followers of Christ. Not only that, but knowing that our Savior endured hardships and felt alone while He lived on this earth will hopefully give you a spiritual boost.

So, what do we do when we’re spiritually dry? There are things we can practice to help us climb out of our spiritual pit. Here are some thoughts to consider: 

Lean Back
The very first thing we need to do in this challenging season is simply to rest in God. He is our place of safety and our shelter from devastating storms. His arms are very capable of handling our deepest hurts. So, lean back. Cry out to Him to Him if you want. Just know He’s got you.

Faith First
We have to trust what our faith tells us and demand that our feelings take a back seat. It’s been said that we often believe our doubts and doubt our beliefs. We need to flip that around. Remembering and claiming the truth we’ve learned in the rich spiritual seasons of our lives will carry us through the valleys when doubts come our way. 

Evaluate Your Influences
When you find yourself in a spiritual deficit, evaluate what your biggest influences are. What are you watching or listening to? Who are you spending time with? It’s wise to assess who and what is investing in us whether we know they are or not.

Spiritual Practices
Isn’t it funny that the things we don’t feel like doing during our spiritual dry spells are the things we actually need to do to help us fill back up spiritually? It feels like work to read the Bible, pray, worship, or even go to church, so we stop. When we do, we get even more spiritually malnourished. We must choose to invest in our spiritual comeback even when our feelings are screaming for us not to. 

We never have to earn God’s love or acceptance with our actions. Anything we do to stay on course spiritually is just to grow closer to Him. To get out of our spiritually dry season, we do the things we’ve done when we were in a healthy season. Because when we do that, we’ll eventually fill back up.  

Reflect

• In your dry season, what role have your feelings had? Have they dictated your faith or were you allowing your faith to govern your feelings?
• When you are struggling spiritually, what is the first spiritual practice that you tend to neglect? Commit to God that you will continue to spend time with Him even when you feel He’s far away.

Sometimes a storm in your life is what will blow you to the place you are longing to be. — Beth Moore

It’s hard to imagine that Jesus, the Son of God, went through spiritual difficulties. He did. There were two specific times in his life where He was pushed beyond anything that our human minds can fathom. 

The Temptation of Jesus
Jesus spent the first 30 years of His life as a normal guy before he began his 3 ½ year public ministry. Before He healed anyone or brought someone back to life, He was baptized in the Jordan River by John the Baptist. Luke 4:1 tells us that Jesus was “full of the Holy Spirit” when he left the Jordan River, and the next sentence says, “The Spirit led him into the desert.” What an astounding thought. Knowing what we know about Satan tempting Jesus, it’s hard for our humanity to grasp that God’s Holy Spirit led Jesus there. 

Jesus spent 40 days in the desert and didn’t consume food or drink during that time. The devil was with Jesus, pummeling Him with doubts, attacks, and questions. He offered the Savior of the world opportunities to forego any future hardship. But Jesus didn’t bite. While his physical frame was weak, His spirit was tenacious. The truth from the Scriptures is what He used as a weapon to counterattack His spiritual enemy. 

The Crucifixion of Jesus
Shortly before Jesus took His last breath on the cross, He cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” God separated Himself from His perfect Son because the past, present, and future sins of the world were heaped upon Jesus on the cross. Because God cannot look upon sin, His intense wrath had to tackle the magnitude of the sin of the world, and He did it once and for all by forsaking His only Son. This would be the only time in all of eternity that God would turn His back on anyone. Because of such an extreme action that left our Savior begging for God’s presence, we’ll never experience loneliness. 

Doesn’t that bring you a sense of relief? Even though you may feel far from God and feel like He’s left you alone, you’re not alone and never will be. When the difficult moments smother us and the hard days ambush us, we stand on this truth. 

As you close up this day’s devotional reading, know this: God has never left you, never will leave you, and is indeed closer than your breath. 

Reflect

• Ponder the fact that every sin of yours—past, present, and future—was placed upon Jesus so you could experience salvation and never fear being forsaken by God. Really think about it. Now, either write or speak out your gratitude for God’s love for you. Even in your pain and spiritual drought, thank Him. 

Hard times are a passport that gives you permission to go places you wouldn’t get to any other way. — Levi Lusko

As Christ followers, we’ve all had a mountaintop experience in our faith journey. They are amazing! And if we’re honest, we’d like to stay on top of the spiritual mountain forever.

But very little spiritual growth happens on the mountain. It’s usually in the valley where we experience the most substantial progress. Even with progress, the valley can feel awfully dark. All of the things we learned on the easier days have somehow disappeared. The faith we said we’d never doubt, we doubt. And then we continue in this cycle of feeling far from God and wondering if it will ever end.

You may have questions about these challenging, spiritual times in your life. Let’s answer two of them. 

Who goes through them?
Everyone. Every single Christ follower goes through spiritual droughts. And isn’t that what they are? We are literally parched and hungry for God, and yet we can’t seem to sense even an ounce of His presence. We begin to wonder why He would let us feel like this and even wonder if He’s real. We need to understand that we’re not the first person to experience these seasons, and we won’t be the last. 

Why do we go through them?
Lots of reasons. Sometimes we go through spiritually dry seasons because we disobey God. Other times we neglect our time with God each day and become distant. We become spiritually dry when we consistently do things that feed our sinful desires. Any and all of those things can cause spiritual starvation. 

We also can’t ignore that sometimes our great God allows these seasons for His purposes. He could simply snap His fingers and bring us out of our spiritual drought, but He doesn’t always. Not only that, He could have prevented it in the first place. We cannot attempt to grasp the perfect mind of our God. We just have to trust that if he allows us to walk through a spiritual valley, then He is doing a work in us that can only come when we persevere through what feels like spiritual quicksand. 

Often in our dark times, we doubt God’s character and question His love for us. It’s in these spiritually dim places that we have to rely on what we know rather than what we feel. Over the next four days of this Plan, we’ll learn how to handle these bleak spiritual seasons with grace and faith and be encouraged by the result that comes from them. 

Reflect

• Have you struggled with how you see God because of a challenging spiritual season? If so, write down one negative thing you’ve believed. Search the Bible to combat your thought, and meditate on this truth.