I need to be honest with you about something most pastors won’t admit from the pulpit: there have been seasons in my forty years of ministry when opening my Bible felt like chewing cardboard. Times when prayer felt like talking to the ceiling. Moments when I wondered if God had packed up and left.
If you’re experiencing that right now – that hollow, dry feeling where your faith feels more like obligation than joy – you’re not alone. And you’re not backsliding. You might actually be right where God wants you.
Let me explain.
What Spiritual Dryness Really Looks Like
Spiritual dryness isn’t about sinning or falling away. It’s that frustrating season where you’re still showing up, still trying, but the joy is gone. The symptoms are unmistakable:
Your Bible reading feels lifeless. You open Scripture and the words just sit there on the page. Nothing connects. Nothing speaks to your heart like it used to.
Prayer feels mechanical. You’re saying the words, but they feel like they’re bouncing off the ceiling. God seems a million miles away.
Worship services leave you empty. Everyone around you seems engaged, lifting their hands, eyes closed in worship. You’re standing there feeling like an imposter.
Ministry feels draining instead of energizing. The things that used to fill you up now feel like obligations you have to check off a list.
You question everything. Is my faith even real? Did I ever really know God? What’s wrong with me?
Here’s what forty years of walking with Jesus has taught me: spiritual dryness is normal. Every believer who’s been in the faith for any length of time will walk through these valleys.
The question isn’t whether you’ll experience dry seasons. The question is what you’ll do when you’re in one.
Why God Allows Dry Seasons
I know this might sound counterintuitive, but sometimes God allows spiritual dryness on purpose. Not to punish you, but to grow you.
To Purify Your Motives
Early in our faith, we often come to God for what He gives us – the emotional highs, the answered prayers, the blessings. There’s nothing wrong with that initially. But mature faith isn’t built on feelings or benefits.
God sometimes withdraws the emotional satisfaction to see if we’ll keep showing up anyway. Will you follow Him when it doesn’t feel good? When you get nothing out of it? That’s when you discover whether you love God or just love what God does for you.
To Deepen Your Dependence
When everything is going great spiritually, it’s easy to start relying on your spiritual disciplines instead of on God. Your morning devotions become the source of your strength instead of the living God.
Dry seasons strip away those crutches and force you back to naked dependence on God Himself. Christians who push through dry seasons often develop deeper, more resilient faith than those who only know the mountaintops.
To Teach You Faith Over Feelings
One of the most dangerous things in modern Christianity is the idea that authentic faith should always feel passionate and alive. That’s simply not biblical.
Christians live by faith, not by feelings. Your feelings are real, but they’re not reliable indicators of spiritual health. Job felt abandoned by God. David felt forgotten. Elijah wanted to die. The greatest saints in history walked through dark valleys where God felt distant.
The lesson? Faithfulness matters more than feelings.
What NOT To Do When You’re Spiritually Dry
Before we talk about solutions, let’s address the common mistakes that make spiritual dryness worse:
Don’t Quit Your Spiritual Disciplines
The worst thing you can do when Bible reading feels dry is to stop reading. When prayer feels empty, don’t stop praying. I know that seems backwards – why keep doing something that isn’t working?
Because your spiritual disciplines aren’t about feelings. They’re about faithfulness. Believers who maintain their disciplines through dry seasons emerge with stronger faith than before.
Think of it like watering a plant during winter. You don’t see growth happening, but you’re maintaining life until spring comes. Stop watering, and the plant dies.
Don’t Isolate Yourself
Spiritual dryness makes you want to withdraw. You look at other believers who seem so alive in their faith and you feel like a fraud. So you start pulling back from church, small groups, Christian friendships.
This is exactly what the enemy wants. Isolation during dry seasons is spiritual suicide. You need the body of Christ most when you feel it least.
Don’t Assume You’ve Done Something Wrong
Not every dry season is the result of unconfessed sin. Sometimes it is – we’ll address that – but often it’s just a natural part of spiritual growth.
Stop beating yourself up trying to figure out what you did wrong. Sometimes there’s nothing to figure out. You’re just in a season of pruning that will eventually produce more fruit.
Practical Steps to Navigate Spiritual Dryness
Now let’s talk about what actually helps when God feels distant:
1. Keep Showing Up
This is the most important thing. Keep reading your Bible even when it feels dry. Keep praying even when it feels pointless. Keep going to church even when you don’t want to.
Obedience during dry seasons builds character that emotional highs never could. You’re training yourself to follow God because He’s worthy, not because it feels good.
I’ve seen believers weather these seasons and come out the other side with a depth and maturity that those who only know spiritual highs never develop.
2. Pray Honest Prayers
Stop trying to pray “right” and just be honest with God. He already knows how you feel. Tell Him:
“God, I feel nothing right now. I’m showing up because I know You’re real, even though You feel a million miles away. I don’t understand what’s happening, but I’m choosing to trust You anyway.”
David did this constantly in the Psalms. He told God exactly how he felt – abandoned, forgotten, confused – and then he chose to praise God anyway. That’s mature faith.
3. Examine Your Life for Practical Issues
Sometimes spiritual dryness has very practical causes:
Physical exhaustion. Elijah experienced spiritual crisis when he was physically depleted. Are you getting enough sleep? Eating properly? Your body affects your spiritual life.
Unconfessed sin. Not always, but sometimes spiritual dryness is God’s way of getting your attention about something in your life that needs addressing.
Relational issues. Unforgiveness, broken relationships, and bitterness can create barriers to sensing God’s presence.
Information overload. Are you consuming so much digital noise that you’ve drowned out the still, small voice of God? Excessive screen time significantly impacts spiritual vitality.
4. Serve Someone Else
One of the fastest ways to break through spiritual dryness is to stop focusing on your own spiritual state and start serving others. Get your eyes off yourself.
Visit someone in the hospital. Volunteer at church. Help a neighbor. Mentor a younger believer. When you pour yourself out for others, something shifts inside. Jesus said if you lose your life, you’ll find it. This applies to dry seasons too.
5. Remember God’s Faithfulness
When you can’t see God moving in the present, remember what He’s done in the past. Pull out your journal. Think back to prayers He answered. Recall times He came through for you.
Just because you can’t feel Him now doesn’t mean He’s not there. God’s presence isn’t dependent on your feelings. He promised to never leave or forsake you, and He keeps His promises.
The Season Will End
Here’s what I need you to understand: this season won’t last forever. Every believer I know who’s walked through spiritual dryness has come out the other side. Some seasons last weeks, some months, some even years – but they do end.
And here’s the beautiful part: the believers who push through these dry seasons with faithfulness develop a depth of faith that those who only know spiritual highs never experience. They learn to trust God’s character instead of their feelings. They discover that God is worthy even when He doesn’t feel close.
The prophet Habakkuk captured this perfectly: “Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior” (Habakkuk 3:17-18).
That’s mature faith – choosing joy and faithfulness even when everything feels barren.
Moving Forward With Confidence
If you’re in a dry season right now, let me give you some pastoral perspective: Don’t panic. Don’t quit. Don’t assume something is wrong with you.
Keep showing up. Keep reading Scripture even when it feels lifeless. Keep praying even when it feels mechanical. Keep gathering with believers even when you don’t feel like it.
You’re building something stronger than emotion-based faith. You’re developing the kind of deep-rooted trust in God that will sustain you through every future storm.
God hasn’t abandoned you. He hasn’t forgotten you. He’s doing something deeper in you than you can see right now. Trust the process. Trust His character. Keep walking forward in obedience.
The rain will come again. Spring always follows winter. But the growth that happens in the hidden seasons of winter is what produces the fruit you’ll see in spring.
Stay faithful. God is with you, even when He feels distant.
“My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?” – Psalm 42:2