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Season 3 Episode 3: Practical Steps to Take When God Feels Far Away
108 Plays2 years ago
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Transcript
Introduction and Purpose
00:00:02
Speaker
Hi, I'm Ruth Schwank and I'm so thrilled you're listening in with us at Rootleg Faith. It is our deepest desire to encourage and equip men and women to be rooted in God's Word, transformed by the love of Jesus and moved by His mission and the power of the Holy Spirit. Nothing is more important.
The Unstuck Spiritual Life Series and Lent
00:00:18
Speaker
Today, we are continuing our new series called The Unstuck Spiritual Life. It's actually the last week. How did we get here? I know. I know. Well, we're getting ready for Lent. I know. Don't give too much away. And so we're going to be moving into that very, very soon. Next week. So this is going to be a transition, if you will, into Lent. So I'm super excited about that. Yeah.
Overcoming Spiritual Stagnation
00:00:37
Speaker
Well, I think that I'm excited about today's episode because, you know, I love practical advice. Like I want somebody to just tell me what to do. Like that's, you know, we can talk, talk, talk about something. Well, honey, we can talk, talk, talk about something. But when somebody just says, now these are the steps you take, oh, that brings such relief to my soul. So that's probably why I like practical advice so much. And I'm excited about today's episode because we're going to talk about
00:01:06
Speaker
specifically practical steps that you can take to get unstuck or any of us can take when we're feeling stuck. And so what are some of those things, honey? Should we back up actually a little bit and just share a little bit about the series and what we've been talking about? I feel like maybe we should do that in case somebody's just hopping in.
Relationship with God: Trust and Transformation
00:01:25
Speaker
Absolutely. I think from the beginning of this little mini series, the Unstuck Spiritual Life, we've been talking about how first and foremost,
00:01:31
Speaker
You know, we've been made to be in a relationship with God and that God loves us. He created us. You know, we bear His image and we were made to know Him and to love Him and to serve Him, to glorify Him in all that we do. And so like we need to start there and that obviously our sin separates us from God. And we have a real adversary who works against that relationship and yet God invites us through Jesus into a new relationship.
00:01:55
Speaker
with Himself. And it's this lifelong journey of trust, right, that is the spiritual life. And as we are learning to listen to Jesus, we're learning from Him and learning to be like Him. He's transforming us from the inside out through the power of the Spirit.
00:02:12
Speaker
And that's this lifelong journey. And along the way, we get
Stages and Misconceptions of Spiritual Growth
00:02:15
Speaker
stuck. We go through different seasons that can be challenging and difficult. And we've been talking about just different stages of the spiritual life. And I was kind of sharing the last episode that some of that was really new to me that I just for a long time just assumed that you just became a Christian and you read your Bible and prayed and went to church.
00:02:33
Speaker
and tried not to sin, and someday you died and went to heaven. And the reality is that the church history is full of different writings and different examples of different ways of describing the stages of growth that we go through. And last episode, we talked about three stages, or three ways. Sometimes it's called three paths, the purgative way, the illuminative way, and then the unitive way.
Understanding Spiritual Dryness
00:02:58
Speaker
So if you get a chance and you didn't listen to that, go back and listen to the last episode.
00:03:02
Speaker
Um, and so today we're really talking about in particular, um, not so much about those three stages, but we're talking about that season or those circumstances that we all run into just seasons where we feel dry. And we did say, I do want to mention too, in the first episode we did talk about.
00:03:18
Speaker
Some things that you can you know look for in your life that could cause that spiritual. Yeah Yeah, that spiritual dryness or feeling stuck but something that just came to mind that I'm just curious to hear your thoughts about do you feel like Any time in our life, you know, we could we could feel this We could have these feelings of being stuck or we could feel this spiritual dryness or would you say that? specifically not happens at certain times
00:03:48
Speaker
No, I think that's a great question. I think that the reality is that feelings of dryness or being stuck I think can happen anytime, at any stage of the spiritual life. Some writers would say that it may be more characteristic in the purgative stage. And so when you think about just those seasons where
The Dark Night of the Soul
00:04:10
Speaker
God seems distant maybe, or we're struggling in greater ways. Oftentimes, you know, that maybe is more characteristic in the purgative than in other stages, but it really can happen anytime. Right. Well, for those listening that didn't hear about the purgative stage, that's in that stage, you may be getting rid of sin. That's a battle, right? You're beginning to follow Jesus, or you're following Jesus, and you're beginning to deal in a new way.
00:04:38
Speaker
with just the presence of sin in your life. But I'm thinking even if you've been a Christian for a while and you're stuck, your sins are overtaking you or you feel overcome by them, then yes, it would be natural to feel like you're stuck spiritually, you're dry, you're not close to God, definitely. This was in the last season, we talked about what writers have called the dark night of the soul.
00:05:04
Speaker
and that journey inward. And so different categories there, but that idea that, yeah, in the Christian life that we become converted, right? We come to know Jesus and we're grounded in our faith. We begin to serve Him and we're discovering our gifts. And there comes a point where maybe we hit a wall spiritually or we experienced some horrible loss. God does something that we weren't expecting. And He does something beyond what we thought He should.
00:05:34
Speaker
And we enter into that season known as the dark night of the soul where God seems distant, we can't perceive his presence. He's behaving in a way that we don't like or that we didn't expect. And some of those answers that we had, biblically or theologically, they just don't cut it anymore. And so that season too is oftentimes marked by great dryness.
00:05:55
Speaker
in uncertainty and in distance. We don't feel God's closeness or His presence. And so there are a variety of ways that a believer, you know, a follower of Jesus can experience dryness in the Christian life. And again, as we've said from the very beginning,
00:06:12
Speaker
we shouldn't be discouraged by
Mature Love Beyond Feelings
00:06:14
Speaker
that. That what we've been describing all along in these different stages and particular seasons of dryness, like this is normal in the spiritual life. And so I wouldn't want anybody to feel discouraged by that in any way that we all experience at different times and in different ways, seasons of dryness and not maybe understanding what God is doing.
00:06:34
Speaker
and not feeling that closeness that we experienced before, some of the feelings maybe that went along with the Christian life early on. And those are all, again, invitations by God that he's doing something new, he's doing something different. And being stuck in that way is really, again, an invitation by God to go deeper.
00:06:54
Speaker
Mm-hmm and I what you brought up feelings and I think you know, we move from feeling you know We're walking by our feelings to walking by faith and and that is you know, God is working in our hearts. He's maturing us and We may feel like it's a bit dry, right? We might not feel like God is so close, but we continue anyways. It's like we follow anyways We keep seeking him anyways
00:07:21
Speaker
And I think that's one of the chief characteristics of this season of dryness is just what you described, that God is maturing us and we go, it's sort of like in love, that infatuation period, the honeymoon phase where you just are all kind of giddy and you just can't get enough of each other and every time you get together there's sparks, all of those things, maybe a little dramatic.
00:07:47
Speaker
You know what I'm saying? And as your love grows and matures, those feelings go away. They have to. And it's not that you love your spouse or your boyfriend or your girlfriend less, but it's a new love. It's a deeper love. It's a more mature love. And the same thing is true in the spiritual life, that what happens in seasons of dryness is we're learning to love God for who He is and not what He gives us, including feelings. And so we're learning to walk by faith and to trust Him, to take Him at His word.
00:08:14
Speaker
to obey what his word says, regardless of how we feel. And so that is one of the chief characteristics of what God is up to in seasons of dryness. I would just say that in seasons of dryness, another thing that God is up to is that we're learning to love like God loves. You know, we tend to love people
00:08:35
Speaker
Maybe I'll say that we tend to love God like we love other people. The reality is we usually love people for what they can do for us. And we love them as long as they love us back. And that's really a selfish love. And so one of the things that God is doing in seasons of dryness is we're learning to have our love
00:08:56
Speaker
for Him, but also our love for others purified. And that's painful. And as we look at the cross and meditate on the cross, we're learning what real self-emptying or self-giving love really is. And so during seasons of dryness, that's one of the things that
Humility and God's Grace
00:09:13
Speaker
God is up to. He wants us to know how much He loves us, but He's also purifying our love for Him and purifying our love for others. And so we move from focusing on being loved to focusing on loving.
00:09:26
Speaker
And we're learning to be humble and living with humility. And sometimes it takes those hard seasons to really understand that. Well, I think the thing that's significant about humility in this particular season of dryness is the admission that I can't do anything apart from God's grace. So for example, as a pastor, as a preacher,
00:09:51
Speaker
It's painful to get up and to go, you know what? There is nothing I can do apart from God's grace to move my brothers and sisters this morning. God, unless you move, unless you speak through me, there's not gonna be any change that's really gonna be lasting, that's really gonna be significant. That's humility. Or in my own life, God, there's nothing I can possibly do
00:10:14
Speaker
to have feelings. I don't love you like I should. I don't have the kind of faith like I should. I don't love my spouse like I should. I don't love my kids like, you know, whatever it is, that's humbling. And it's, again, during this season that we are recognizing that any fruit that I bear, any fruit that we bear is an act of God's grace. I mean, John 15, we can't bear fruit apart from Christ.
00:10:41
Speaker
And during that season of dryness, we're learning that truth that anything good that comes out of our life that is happening through our life is the result of God's grace. Not by anything that we do or manufacture, even our own feelings, even those affections, those are an act of God's grace. And like I keep saying, and in this season, the most important thing is to just keep seeking God, keep being faithful and patient with the work that he is doing in our lives.
Navigating Dryness with Scripture and Prayer
00:11:12
Speaker
Absolutely. Well, I think it's really important for us. I think, you know, I know we want to sort of aim now in the direction of just talking about some really practical things to do because I think this is where it can get really discouraging for folks. You know, this is can be a really dangerous season for a lot of people as they are walking with God. This is a time when many people can abandon their faith. They can give up on God. They can give up on church. They can assume that something is either wrong with them or wrong with their church.
00:11:40
Speaker
or, again, something wrong with our relationship with God. So it's really important, I think, during this stage to surround ourselves with good community, to stay connected, and to do some very practical things that we've likely been doing all along. And so let's kind of hit on some of those really practical things before we wrap up this episode.
00:12:02
Speaker
Yeah. And I like that you said that we've been doing all along because I think, you know, we think something new is going to just change everything. And a lot of times it's some of the things we've been doing all along. And I think, you know, first of all, obviously is is going to God's word and continuing to learn and grow in scriptures, learning from other people who are teaching scriptures, just being faithful in going to God's word.
00:12:29
Speaker
Yeah. I think, you know, I think of Jesus's words in Matthew chapter four, you know, where he says, man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. And that Jesus understood, of course, he's quoting, you know, from the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy, Jesus understood that his lifeline was the very words of God.
00:12:46
Speaker
And I think there are lots of times in the spiritual life where we might go to God's word and we might not necessarily feel anything. We might not see the change right away, but God's word is so important for us during this season to keep in front of us and to keep as a priority.
00:13:03
Speaker
that God's Word really is, you know, our great satisfaction, our great sustenance. And I guess I would add to that just, I think, times of prayer in different types of prayer. You know, we've talked about in the past this idea of just using
00:13:19
Speaker
the words of other people to pray that sometimes in seasons of dryness or difficulty or discouragement or suffering, like it's really, really hard to even find the language to wrap around what it is that we're asking of God or what's going on inside of us.
00:13:35
Speaker
And I think it's so important during these seasons or those seasons to sometimes use scripture, to pray scripture in the book of Psalms is a great example to pray the Psalms or to pray the Lord's Prayer, to pray other prayers that have been written by different men and women throughout church history that can sometimes say what we want to say, but we're having trouble finding the words.
00:13:58
Speaker
Yeah, and that reminds me of prayer nights that I do on my Instagram.
Supportive Practices on Instagram
00:14:04
Speaker
At Rooshwink is my Instagram and I have I started a couple of years ago. I just honestly one night I thought I'm going to write a prayer for the woman that is reading this right now. I just really felt I mean I literally it was like midnight.
00:14:19
Speaker
And I wrote a few sentences, a prayer, and I just could not believe the response. It was like women saying, how did you know I needed this? It was like over and over again. And so since that time, I have written prayers that I post on Instagram and Facebook a couple of times a week.
00:14:41
Speaker
They can have to do with all sorts of things that we face in life, but it's for the woman that's reading it that needs to hear that prayer or needs that prayer prayed over them. And that's exactly the point. They don't even know what to pray because of where they're at. And so I think, again, this is such a great way, using resources that have those prayers written out for us in those times that we don't even know what to do or what to say.
00:15:09
Speaker
I think, you know, typically when we're talking about these kinds of prayers, we're talking about vocal prayers. That's what people have called them, you know, praying the Psalms, praying the Lord's Prayer or spontaneous prayers. You know, we tend to think that spontaneous prayers are the more authentic prayers, you know, because they're coming from the heart.
00:15:25
Speaker
But the reality is sometimes it's just even hard, like we're talking about, it's hard to know how to pray spontaneously because we can't find those words. But when we think about vocal prayers, we're really talking about praying with words. And again, sometimes we have to pray those words that have been given to us either in scripture or elsewhere, like you provided on Facebook and on Instagram. And those can be such a blessing for somebody who's in a dry season.
00:15:50
Speaker
who knows their need for God, who's hurting, who's questioning, but they just can't even find the words to pray for themselves. And so it's really important. I think about another type of prayer that I think is really important that the scriptures talk about, and it's not just vocal prayers, but it's meditation. And so I think about Psalm chapter one, for example, verses one and two, where the psalmist says, blessed is the one who does not walk.
00:16:14
Speaker
in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners, but his delight is in the law of the Lord. And on his law, he meditates day and night. And that word meditate is a Hebrew word that literally means to growl. It's the sound that maybe an animal makes as it's devouring something. And so this idea of just sort of gnawing on God's word, devouring God's word, meditating on God's word,
00:16:41
Speaker
I don't know about you, but sometimes I can just get into the habit of reading, you know, a passage or reading a chapter and I can just kind of quickly go through it. And so meditation is really that idea of really slowing down and just sort of chewing on a word or a phrase and just asking the Holy Spirit.
00:16:59
Speaker
to speak to you and to bring to light what it is that he wants you to hear and see and understand. And so meditation is another, I think, a really, really important way to pray, especially we're in seasons of dryness.
Meditation and Reflection on God’s Word
00:17:15
Speaker
That's good. And I love that picture of gnawing on his law day and night because, you know, when I don't know, when I think about meditating on his law day and night, it sounds so, I don't know, like lofty and lovely. And this is like, this is the real deal.
00:17:34
Speaker
I think it's if I remember right the Hebrew word is Haga. Oh, yeah Years ago it's always stuck with me and I honestly I forgot that and that's just so so good It just gives us a completely different picture. I love that
00:17:49
Speaker
Yeah, one other thing before we wrap up, I think is really important during this particular season of dryness is to examine yourself or to allow God to examine you.
Self-Examination and God's Presence
00:18:01
Speaker
And again, the practice of examination, I think comes from Psalm 139.
00:18:08
Speaker
you know, search me and know me, you know, examine my ways, show me, you know, my ways. Is there anything offensive in me, God? Point it out. I want to see it and lead me in the way everlasting, you know, the psalmist says. And so the practice of examination can be done a variety of ways or a variety of times. I have gotten into the habit of doing it in the morning. And so the first thing that you do as a part of your prayer time in the morning is you just get up and you review your day. You think about the previous day and you just ask God to kind of, you know, play the tape back and
00:18:38
Speaker
Think about the conversations and the events, and think about your schedule. And then you're really reviewing those conversations. And where did I fail to respond to your love? Where did I fail to really live like a son of God or a daughter of God? Where did I sin? Where did I break your heart, God? Where did I offend somebody else? Where did I get upset? Where was I self-righteous? Where, you know, whatever it is. And then you repent of that. God forgive me.
00:19:06
Speaker
And then you transition into just requesting, God, give me the grace as I move into a new day, give me your grace to live as a son of God or a daughter of God. Help me to be somebody who is really radiating your love to those around me. And so that examination is meant to just be a daily practice of allowing God to search you and to bring to heart, to bring to light.
00:19:27
Speaker
the things that maybe you're wrestling with or struggling with. It's meant to be honest with God. And again, the more honest we are, the more intimate our relationship with God will be. And so I think that can be a really, really helpful practice. Some people do that three times a day. They do it in the morning. They do it at lunch and they do it at night. I'm not that spiritual. I'm not that holy yet.
00:19:48
Speaker
maybe 2023, but doing that in the evening actually can be a really, really good time to do that as well. And you're just replaying your day in all of the ways that I just described. And that can be a great way of, again, just inviting God's presence into your life. And, you know, you're asking the Holy Spirit to give you greater understanding, greater direction, more growth, and ultimately for him to draw you in a deeper, more intimate relationship with the Father.
00:20:15
Speaker
Yeah, and I think in something like that, it reminded me of reminders I have set on my phone to pray throughout the day. So if that would be helpful, like for this examination, setting a reminder on your phone, time to examine yourself. Time to pray, time to confess all of that, Sam.
00:20:35
Speaker
or time to pray. So these are just some of the practical ways that you can do your best to get unstuck.
Recap: Overcoming Spiritual Dryness
00:20:43
Speaker
And that is by going to scripture, even when you don't feel like it, going to scripture, it's by praying. Maybe it's using someone else's prayers, like we said. Maybe it's praying scriptures, meditating on God's word, gnawing it, like we said. And then just examining your life and making that a regular practice to examine yourself.
00:21:04
Speaker
I think staying, we mentioned it briefly, but just adding to that list, I think it's so important for us to stay in community. This can be such a dangerous time for somebody spiritually. It's so easy for somebody to withdraw from their small group or their church community, their local church. And so it's so important, I think, to stay connected and
00:21:22
Speaker
within the body of Christ. And I think overall, the point here as we close is that in seasons of dryness, it's so important for us to really keep doing what we've likely been doing all along and to keep being faithful and to persevere and to be patient. That God's greatest work during this season is convincing you of His love for you.
00:21:43
Speaker
And I think that that's really what God is up to primarily in seasons of dryness, that He wants us to now rebuild a life based on the foundation of His unchanging love for us. And so keep being patient. Keep persevering. Don't give up. Don't get discouraged. Keep doing what you've likely been doing all along. And God's going to do what He's promised to do. He's going to show up. He's going to work. There's going to be a breakthrough.
00:22:07
Speaker
And when it comes, the fruit that he will bear will be a different kind of fruit. It'll be a deeper fruit. It'll be a deeper relationship than we had before. And so I would say that as we close, don't give up, don't get discouraged. Keep doing what you've likely been doing all along and just watch what God's gonna do.
00:22:24
Speaker
Yeah, we can trust him. Absolutely. Oh, this is so good. We are so grateful that you joined
Connecting with the Hosts
00:22:30
Speaker
us today. If we haven't met yet, we want to get to know you. So be sure to follow us on Instagram at Patrick W. Schwank and at Ruth Schwank or on Facebook and send us a DM and introduce yourself. We love to get to know you.
00:22:43
Speaker
And don't forget, everything that we talked about will be at rootlikefaith.com forward slash podcast. Again, we welcome you into our family here at Root Like Faith. That's how we see it. We see it like a family, which is why we want you to introduce yourself to us. Well, we will chat soon and we hope you have the best week.