On Spiritual Dryness

If you have been to a place where rice is grown, you would be familiar with its varied stages of growth – from planting to harvesting. Farmers transplant the seeds from the rice beds to the rice fields. They water the fields until those seedlings grow into lush, green blades that will eventually bear fruit to millions of green or golden yellow grains. Throughout the process, there is one important element farmers should never forget – water. Without water, the rice grains wither and die.

Similar to the rice grains needing water for growth and sustenance, we too need the Divine Providence to help us grow as Christians. God is love, and we need Him. But like any other relationship, we need to communicate with the other party. We need to do our part to communicate with God. We nurture our relationship with Him when we do not forget to say our prayers such as our morning and evening praise, or meal thanksgiving prayer. These are but examples of counting God in our day-to-day routine. When we repeatedly forget to include God in our daily life, we come to a point where we no longer recognize His presence. He becomes unimportant to us, and we create this gap between Him and us. This is the commencement of our ‘spiritual dryness.’

Spiritual dryness is usually understood as a ‘form of spiritual crisis experienced subjectively as a sense of separation from God.’ For me, it means the absence of that life-giving spirit – the spirit that gives us a sense of purpose and energy to attain it. Without this spirit, we become listless and unmotivated; we get bored; we do not find meaning in what we are doing. Such ‘dryness in faith’ is manifested in many ways: we have little or no desire to pray; we make excuses for not attending Sunday worship or our small group prayer meetings; we refuse to read the bible nor listen to spiritual leaders.

The one thing we should remember when we are undergoing such spiritual dryness is that we have that ‘spirit’ in us. We have God in our heart, but we just get interrupted or distracted by the day-to-day affairs of life. This interruption of our communication with God can be eliminated when we make consistent effort to do the ‘little things’ that make us closer to Him. We praise and worship or say our petitions and supplications. We continue thanking Him for the gift of life and good health, for our family and friends, our jobs, and the like. Most importantly, we remember to recognize Him in the people we meet or serve everyday.

We continue to long for Him like David who expressed his thirst for God when he was in the wilderness of Judah.

         You, God, are my God; and I long for you;

         My whole being desires you; my soul is searching for you,

         Like a dry and waterless land.

        Let me see you in the sanctuary;

       Let me see how mighty and glorious you are!