Ecclesiastes 3:1 — To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven
All too often we live in the current season of our lives as though it will last forever. We respond to the dynamics of the circumstances, emotions and reality of that season as though it will never change.
But the truth is that to everything there is a season, even our lives. And a purpose inside of it under heaven. It will benefit all of us, to embrace life with this understanding as we flow from season to season.
Seasons are crucially imperative to our souls.
What we experience and the purposes of each of the shifting seasons we live through, shape our story and make the gospel even more beautiful inside each of our lives.
Seasons build our testimony to the faithfulness of God
And anyone who has lived this life, knows that there are not just four primary seasons that affect nature, but there are seasons of the soul. Seasons that feel dry, some dark. Seasons of battle, of storms and there are times and seasons of blessing and favor.
Today, I want to touch on one of those seasons of life. Seasons where everything seems dry.
Psalm 63:1 — You, God, are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water.
Metaphorically speaking King David, writes I am in a season where life feels dry and God seems distant.
What is a Dry Season?
Dry Seasons Feels like Narnia? — “Always winter but never Christmas”
If you have been a Christian for any amount of time, you know that spiritual passion, vision, and affections ebb and flow. At times our sense of spiritual realities can be strong and vibrant; other times, our hearts feel like lead weights and we find ourselves longing for God to visit us once again and bring refreshment
Dry Seasons have a purpose and they happen to everyone.
No one is above or beyond a dry season.
Sometimes God will send us into a Dry Season
Sometimes physical and spiritual exhaustion can send us into a dry season
Spiritual slumps and dry seasons are not an option for followers of Jesus
They are a Biblically verified reality in any one who chooses to follow Jesus…
What are the dangers of a Dry Season?
#1. Unconfessed Sin.
Consider Sampson —He awoke from his sleep and thought, “I’ll go out as before and shake myself free.” But he did not know that the Lord had left him (Judges 16:20b NIV). Samson was driven not by the Spirit but by his lust and all of a sudden, the anointing is gone,
…he had passion but no influence, … determination without any power.
In Dry seasons our sin can go unchecked and one day we wake up and say “something is missing”…
This is the danger: SIN CAN GO UNCHECKED or UNCONFESSED WHEN YOU ARE IN A DRY SEASON …
Dry seasons illustrate the biblical truth that
God will not tolerate sin and sin will separate us from the presence of God
Keeping us stuck in the Spiritually Dry Season.
#2. Spiritual Apathy
Apathy comes from a latin word called Acedia, or sometimes referred to as one of the seven deadly sins called “Sloth”.
Catholics called it the “noonday devil”. The historical understanding of this term goes way back to the ancient desert monks. Sloth, Apathy or this noonday devil as though they called it was not about physical fatigue or laziness, but rather a depression and deflation from the spiritual resolve and tenacity to seek God.
This “slothful” apathetic indifference or deflation of passion finds its habitat deep with the dark seasons of our soul, where thorns and thistles grow, The hard rocks of the heart , the hot sun drying up the ground …keep the seeds of bible study, prayer and worship from penetrating. Just as Jesus taught in the Parable of the Sower in (Matthew 13, Parable of the Sower)
- Indifference keeps us away from passion and commitment and participation, in dry seasons there is always an excuse!
- Its in the dry seasons that indifference and apathy can dry up the church’s enthusiasm, its participation, its preparation and fellowship, destroying any potential momentum or moving of the spirit.
Dry Seasons are all too often moments where the Spirit is quenched and grieved.
#3. Spiritual Pride
DRY SEASONS CHALLENGE OUR SPIRITUAL MATURITY.
Dry seasons will bring a sense of entitlement or in other words a feeling like God owes you…its possible you’ve been in a season of hard work and service and now that you see no fruit, or no results, you tend to have the feeling God owes you something.
Dry seasons often remind God of what we’ve done with our hands instead of giving Him our hearts.
Dry seasons will convince us that God needs to start working for us,
instead of us working for God.
And we spend more time boasting about what we’ve done
rather than Honor Him for who He is!
Dry Seasons we look for ways to become bigger and God in consequence becomes smaller…
Dry seasons weaken our faith and we develop unbelief, and become ensnared bio you self-deception and the result is self-confidence and self-importance and self-preservation, which can bring eternal consequences and devastating disasters during that dry season of your soul.
What should you do in A Dry Season
#1. Let God Inspect & Detox your soul.
1 John 1:9 — if you confess your sin, he is faithful and just to forgive you
…lay it all out on the table…put yourself in the surgeon’s hand…nobody likes to hear the doctor say, you’ve got a clot in your heart, but in the same token most people will not refuse the surgery to remove that clot and keep them alive and healthy….if the EKG of your soul shows something abnormal don’t ignore it!! If the bloodwork comes back with some unhealthy levels, don’t let it go unchecked…
When I kept silent, my bones wasted away
Dry Seasons many times require us to go on a Spiritual Detox…
DETOX YOUR HEART —
“Who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults. Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me!” (Psalm 19:12–13).
DETOX YOUR EYES —
Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways. — Psalm119:37
I have made a covenant with my eyes…(Job 31:1)
DETOX YOUR WORDS
“Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer” (Psalm 19:14).
DETOX YOUR ACTIONS
“Turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it” (Psalm 34:14).
Let God inspect and detox your soul…WHAT GOING ON INWARDLY IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN WHAT IS GOING ON OUTWARDLY!
#2. Remind yourself of God’s Purposes
How do you do this?
Ask yourself who changed? You or God? (FYI…God doesn’t change)
How has your spiritual fervor and passion changed? (Jeremiah 2:6)
Do you look for God anymore?
when you start praying?
in the sermon?
when you walk into church?
The only trees that can survived a dry season of drought or famine are the ones with roots deep enough to soak up the water that lies far beneath the dry ground. Your devotion, your bible reading in a dry season has to go deeper into the Word of God and His promises found there!
“For he will be like a tree planted by the water, that extends its roots by a stream and will not fear when the heat comes; but its leaves will be green, and it will not be anxious in a year of drought nor cease to yield fruit” (Jer. 17:8).
#3. Invite other voices into your Season
Dry seasons give others opportunity to speak into our lives….its a time that others can carry us, and speak life into us…
Hebrews 10:24-25 – “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”
Allow yourself to be authentic, honest and transparent with others about where you are, instead of selfishly and quietly by yourself, continue to have a morbid inspection of your condition and season…
Look for brothers and sisters in Christ, and let them bless you, let them encourage and affirm you…the power of words spoken from the Body of Christ can do wonders to us as we live in dry seasons…
God’s design includes a responsibility for one another…
Don’t be afraid to overwhelm people. Don’t be embarrassed to show yourself vulnerable… We were created for this, to be interdependent and to love one another….
Don’t be afraid to build in some accountability, confess your sins to each other, pray for each other, instruct one another, speak truthfully to one another…
#4. Find opportunities to serve People.
Sometimes in dry seasons we can become so pre-occupied with our own calling, second guessing what decisions we’ve made to get us here… and yet God is not so concerned about our calling as He is about how we pursue Him and His calling for our lives…
What does the Lord require but to do justice (treat people fairly) love mercy (find ways to be a blessing to somebody) and to walk humbly (considering others above yourself). Find someone else to spur on, look for fruit in someone else’s life and celebrate it, affirm it,
Stop pleasing yourself and strive to find ways to please others, make some one else’s life joyful…
pay it forward spiritually…
#5. Pray like God will be found. (Jeremiah 29:13)
God allows Himself to be found
…How do you search for God? Do you search for Him like you lost $1 million dollars or do you search for Him like you lost $1 dollar? When you search for God like you lost $1 million dollars you are going to be searching for Him all night because He means so much to you. You know His worth! (Jeremiah 29:13)
The Parable of the Persistent Widow illustrates how we can come to God day and night inside this dry season, knowing that at some point, He will answer and He will shift the season, and He will show Himself to be faithful..and He will be found!
Though the fig tree does not blossom,nor there be fruit on the vines;
the yield of the olive tree fails, and the cultivated fields do not yield food;
the flock is cut off from the animal pen, and there is no cattle in the stalls,
18 Yet I will rejoice in Yahweh; I will exult in the God of my salvation.
19 Yahweh, my Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer;
he causes me to walk on my high places.— Habbakuk 3:17-19