Question: What’s the biblical way to deal with the feel of detachment with God? God is almighty, He can do all things. God is faithful, so He listens to your prayer. However, none of these promises guarantees the fulfillment of your desperate prayer. He can, doesn’t mean he will, and should. He may answer your prayer, but that doesn’t mean He will grant your wishes. He may even keep the silence all the time! But He is also with you all the time, just that you may not feel it. He is good and He is for us, but His thought is not our thought and His way is not our way, so there is no way you can understand the goodness of His thought and the reason behind His actions and decisions. We read His words and sing His praises, we pray that He may heal the land with transgressions. Yet, He may not answer your prayer, and as the Book of Job said, we are not even qualified to question the reason behind it. Like Job, your best bet is just to know that questioning God is vanity, a chasing after the wind. At this point, I’m just feeling like a detached, self-controlled robot (but with the life and love given by Jesus): Going church, going home. Reading the bible, trying to live a biblical life. Rinse and repeat, with no external (God) feedback at all.
Profile: Male, Asia, 26–35, Christian
Answered by: Tim Lenell, who has been serving on our Q&A Answer Team since September 2019.
Answer: Thank you for your question. Spiritual dryness as you are describing not uncommon for Christians. Many Psalms are written from a place of feeling distant from God. In Psalm 13: 1-2, David says, “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?” But the Biblical perspective doesn’t leave us here. In the songs of lament where the author is questioning – where is God in all of my life’s trials – there is a turning point towards God. Psalm 13: 5-6 ends with “But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me.” This is how we move from our spiritual dryness. We focus on the goodness and steadfast love of God.
Often when we are feeling spiritually distant from God. We don’t feel like worship, but this is exactly why we should worship in these moments. We don’t worship just because we feel like it. We worship because God is the only one worthy to be praised. In these moments, the truths of God’s words move past superficial levels of emotional responses and become solidified as truths we believe even if we don’t feel it. In this way, feeling distant from God can work towards strengthening our faith as God is growing our faith in weaning us from dependence on feeling.
Psalm 131 says, “Lord, my heart is not proud; my eyes are not haughty. I don’t concern myself with matters too great or too awesome for me to grasp. Instead, I have calmed and quieted myself, like a weaned child who no longer cries for its mother’s milk. Yes, like a weaned child is my soul within me. O Israel put your hope in the LORD – now and always.” Un-weaned children seek their mother because of the milk, she can provide. A weaned child that is content in his mother’s arm no longer simply desires his mother for her milk, but desires her because he loves her. The relationship deepens through the weaning process, but often the weaning process is uncomfortable for the child. This is a Psalm that shows us the beauty of trusting in God even in the dark and lonely times of our life, and reminds us to look to these times as opportunities to grow in faith and obedience.
Finally, the Bible teaches us that we are not alone in these moments of feeling distant from God. We have a body of believers who at all times have members who are celebrating, members who are mourning, and everywhere in between. Through our local church community, spiritual dryness will begin to be watered through corporate worship, prayer, and service together. Psalm 133: 1,3 says, “How wonderful and pleasant it is when brothers live together in harmony! Harmony is as refreshing as the dew from Mount Hermon that falls on the mountains of Zion. And there the LORD has pronounced his blessing, even life everlasting.” Living together in harmony, produces the refreshing dew of the mountains on your soul. It is through experiencing life at church that we find the Lord works in our hearts and renews our souls.
I hope this answers your question on how to move through this period of spiritual dryness.
