"Getting Through Dry Seasons"

Introduction:

Everyone has ‘dry seasons’.

And sometimes they persist.

In ‘dry seasons’:

• God can feel distant, or our relationship with God can feel lifeless
• Life seems somewhat harder, or relationships are more difficult to maintain
• We seem to be praying into an empty void, or to be standing still while everyone else is moving forward
• It’s difficult to make any sort of decision, or we are just generally lethargic
• Serious doubts can be applied to what we believe, or we just feel entirely weighed down … weighed down perhaps by responsibility that is becoming hard to bear
• We feel ill a lot the time, but find it hard to seek help.

There is no set reason why ‘dry seasons’ come, and no set formula or remedy to see them go. But there does seem to be triggers … for the onset of ‘dry seasons’:

• Disappointment – in things not turning out the way we thought they should
• Hurt – from the behaviour of certain trusted people
• Opposition – people being against us and trying to undo us or diminish us
• Loss – not coping with the absence of those who have been important to us
• Habitual sin or an addiction – that has got a strong hold over us
• Regret – feelings of guilt about something we did, or something we have left undone; and the inability to forgive ourselves (even if God and others have already forgiven us)
• Oswald Chambers speaks about the "unfathomable sadness of the might have been".

There are various responses to ‘dry seasons’, including levels of negativity, but one reaction that is common: withdrawal, escape, flight – withdrawal from relationships, groups, family, church and God. This, however, may I say, (usually) only makes matters worse. Why so? Withdrawal …

• Depletes relationships, which may never be able to fully recover
• It lessens avenues of support, encouragement, positivity and hope
• It confines us to the limits of ourselves, which is always problematical for social beings (as we were created to be)
• It vastly reduces the voices of reason available to us – we only hear what we want to hear, not what we need to hear; and ultimately we only hear our own increasingly unhelpful voice (filled with negative self-talk)
• We tend to desperately seek answers in the wrong places (where there may be some sort of immediate relief, but nothing that will be of any ongoing value)
• We can get on a never-ending roundabout of looking and searching, and before we know it … life may have passed us by.

May I make the case for an alternative approach to ‘dry seasons’? This would be for us when needed; and also as a recommendation for those we know (in their ‘dry season’).

4 ways of responding to a ‘dry season’. In three of these I acknowledge the writing of American pastor Clarence Stowers.

1. Pumping up our Praise. This seems so counter-intuitive – if you feel worse … you naturally praise (God) less. But giving yourself over to God in praise and worship, opens the space in which God can work in new ways in your life. Praise (of God) divorces us from a pre-occupation with how bad we feel, and focusses us on a much bigger picture. We would be opening ourself to new discoveries about how mighty God is, about how much God loves me, and, about how God has been truly faithful to me in certain ways in the past. Our lives are turned outward (in praise) toward thoughts of God’s Kingdom, God’s world and God’s mission.

You also get to sing words of reassurance and faith, that can once again imbed themselves within you. As we worship and praise, we are opening ourselves to be transformed into the image of Jesus. Sometimes you might not feel that the words we sing are true for you at the moment, but in singing them, there is the prospect that they could be true again. A psychologist once told me, that if you are used to singing and then stop, you are likely doing tremendous harm to yourself. How do I know this is true … well, it once happened to me. "Songs have a unique capacity to inform our minds, to stir our souls, and to engender hope" (Barry D Jones). If you are not particularly a singing type of person, let me encourage you to find ways of engaging with the music and words, such that you are sensing the presence of God with you.

The writer of Psalm 42 was in a ‘dry season’. This psalmist compared himself to a deer lost in an arid desert with no water in sight. This deer was as thirsty as could be. “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul longs after you O God”. With all sorts of conversations and reflections going on throughout the psalm, it resolves this way (in verse 5 and again in the last verse 11): “Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Saviour and my God” (NIV). A determination to praise was part of the solution to this psalmist’s ‘dry season’. What and who we praise … magnifies and grows in possibility!

2. Remembering our Worth. Yes, we have sinned, Yes, we have fallen short of the glory of God. But this is far from the way the story started, and can be far from the way the story ends. Our life is of tremendous value to God.

When God created humankind, they were created in God’s own image and likeness, given responsibility for the rest of creation, and declared by God to be “very good” (Genesis 1: 26-27, 31). When a psalmist reflects on our origins, we read: “For it was you [God] who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well”. (Psalm 139:13-14, NRSV).

And then, Paul reflects on the lengths God went to redeem our lives (after sin had had its way)  – “But God proves his love for us, in that while we were still sinners … Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). And then, in an act of re-creation, we read again from Paul, “So if anyone is in Christ – new creation; everything old has gone, the new has come (2 Corinthians 5:17)!

We were created with great hope, and later redeemed for great purpose. God loved and valued us so much that Jesus came and took our place on a cross, bringing us forgiveness and a way forward. Knowing that life would remain difficult and challenging, Jesus would NOT just leave us to our own devices entirely, but gave us the Holy Spirit through which to discern God’s will day by day. We are valued enough … to also be gifted of God to be representatives of Jesus on earth. Let’s remember our worth – we are called to be witnesses to Jesus, and that is a high calling indeed!

3. Focussing on Jesus. We can at times get bogged down in the complexities of religion or theology. In a ‘dry season’, it can all seem a bit much! Yet, when in a ‘dry season’, that’s the perfect time to strip it all back to one person (and one relationship) – Jesus. Jesus is the human representation of God. Jesus is our friend, and our saviour, and our leader. Jesus is compassion. Jesus loves and cares for all who are lost in life. “The incarnation of Jesus was the incursion of shalom into the brokenness of the world, to secure for that world a hope beyond the brokenness” (Barry D Jones). [“Shalom” means the webbing together of all creation in wholeness, harmony and flourishing – “shalom” is the human being dwelling at peace in all his or her relationships with God, self, others and their complete living environment.] Simply, if we are in a ‘dry season’, Jesus is our hope!

In John chapter 4 we hear about a woman who was lost in life. She was unhappy, co-dependent … having had a series of failed relationships with men – caught spiritually in the middle of nowhere. She was very thirsty indeed! In approaching the local town well that day, this woman would have been thinking that it was the visitor Jesus who most needed water; but she would soon find out that it was Jesus who would be providing her … with the very water she most needed. Jesus said to her, “The water that I will give, will become in them, a spring of water … gushing up to eternal life” (4:14b NRSV). [In this context, “eternal life” means … ‘life now to the fullest’.] For all those in the ‘dry season’, Jesus is the “living water”!

And we get to taste that ‘living water’ every time we read about Jesus in the Gospel books. Whatever the question, whatever the need; we will find Jesus is the answer. What about our whole sense of defeat at times, that our lives lack meaning and aren’t going anywhere?! In the book of Mark, the whole gospel is introduced and summed up in a short sentence (and then this is explained as the narrative unfolds): “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news” (Mark 1: 15). If we are ever stuck in a mindset of defeat, we should take an audit of ourselves, and, with the Holy Spirit’s help, make some changes.

4. Being involved in church. To quote Clarence Stowers, “When we go through desert seasons, the very place we run from, is where we need to run to: church”! Here are two reasons:

• A ‘dry season’ makes us NO LESS a member of the “Body of Christ”. If we try to pull ourselves away, we are actually fracturing the “new creation”. Most relevantly, we are denying ourselves all of the capacities of all the other (functional) parts of the ‘body’. We are actually working against nature (or the ‘new nature’ at least).
• Secondly, we would undoubtedly NOT be the only person going through a ‘dry season’; and certainly there would be those who have emerged from recent ‘dry seasons’. We need to open our weaknesses … to the weaknesses and strengths of others. We need to give access to our burdens, so that others may help carry them. We need the voices of encouragement, and the gifts of kindness. We need the collective wisdom.

In 1 Peter 2:4-5 we read these words of encouragement about being together: “Come to him [speaking of Jesus], a living stone, though rejected by mortals, yet chosen in God’s precious sight; and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (NRSV). The resurrected Jesus is the foundation “stone” on which our corporate life in the church is built. As we enter into new life with Jesus, we are the “living stones” that form the structure of this church. These “stones” will have different shapes and sizes, different personality types, different backgrounds and stories, and have different things to offer to the whole. But all will be cemented together by the Holy Spirit, to become a sacred and special movement of God’s people – that we just can’t do without!

In Conclusion:

God allows us to have ‘dry seasons’, for in this way we will recognise that the world is NOT what it should be, and many people are living in the dark and within deep brokenness. Properly channelled, our discontent can fuel a yearning for a better future, that comes from being swept up in the dream of God … for a world set right (B D Jones). In the ‘dry seasons’ … let’s pump up our praise, remember our worth, focus on Jesus, and be the church. This will likely involve courage, but it is courage and faith that facilitate growth. Healing and inspiration for life – happen in community.