A spiritual dry season is a stretch of weeks or months where God feels distant even though nothing obvious has changed. You're praying, you're reading, you may even be serving, and it all feels like cardboard. If that's you right now, you're not uniquely broken. This happens to me a couple times a year, and I lead worship at my church. Here's what my most recent one looked like, and what I've learned from the inside of them.
Doing Everything Right and Feeling Nothing
Just recently, I found myself feeling dry even though I was "doing everything right." I was doing devotionals, leading worship, leading a small group, loving my family and friends, and I didn't feel the presence of the Holy Spirit in any of it. It lasted a few weeks, and it felt terrible, like there was no point or purpose to what I was doing.
I never stopped praying, reading my Bible, or journaling. What did change was how long I journaled. I used to do what's recommended in The Artist's Way and write three full pages. It took thirty minutes, and it had become rote rather than life-giving. So I dropped down to one page, just scripture and a couple of thoughts. That's worth noticing in a dry season. Some of what you do every day stopped feeding you a while ago and kept its place in your routine anyway.
Leading Worship While Dry
People ask what it's like to lead a room into God's presence in a week when you feel none of it yourself. It feels like a slog.
God's presence is not just an emotion or a feeling. Sometimes you can experience God that way, but it's not the only way. Jesus promises to be with me always (Matthew 28:20), so if I don't feel him, it's not because he's absent. It's probably because I'm not listening. I know that, and it still feels like you're a weary soldier who needs a break, but who knows that both he and the people he's leading need to be ushered into the presence of the King. Worship is spiritual battle, and some weeks you fight it tired.
What Doesn't Help
The advice that makes it worse is "keep pushing through," because "it'll get better!" Hollow platitudes. Pushing through leads to burnout in the best case and mental distress in the worst. It may not get better on your schedule, and it certainly didn't on mine.
There's a difference between pushing through and pressing in, and I had to learn it the slow way. Pushing through means doing all the same things, harder, and hoping the feeling catches up. Pressing in means staying close to God while you let some of the doing go. For me that looked like keeping the one page of journaling instead of three, still showing up to lead on Sundays, and letting God question the rest of my routine instead of defending it to him. Pushing through would've burnt me out. Pressing in helped me understand God's heart for me even in the trial.
What Actually Shifted It
What actually shifted it was rest. It took a moment to reset, actually take some time off, and recover. I had to change some things in my life to make that happen. Most of them were routines that had become a golden calf. Others were about making time for what was important rather than what was pressing.
Looking back, God was calling me to rest. I've come to believe dry seasons are a necessary part of spiritual formation. It's in those times that my roots grow deeper, the promises of God become more real, and the rhythms of my life come under investigation, whether they're still the best use of my time.
Is It a Dry Season, or Something Else?
God feeling distant doesn't always mean you're in a dry season. Sin, burnout, and depression can display similar symptoms, and they don't need the same medicine, so it's worth asking honestly which one is actually going on.
Sin separates us from God, but not because God withdraws from us. Sin is a choice I make to separate myself from him. That's different from a dry season, and it has a different remedy: confession, not rest.
Burnout is when I know I'm working too hard and ignoring my friends and family. It's when I stack my life full of tasks without time to slow down, think, and rest.
Depression is when I have no ability to do anything. Nothing feels productive or fruitful, and I'd rather just sleep and do nothing instead. If that's the season you're actually in, tell somebody who loves you, and don't try to devotional your way out of it alone.
I sometimes have a hard time telling the difference between those three. And it's usually when I finally name the issue that it invariably resolves. Naming it is most of the battle.
If You're in Month Three Right Now
If you're in month three of a dry season right now, I encourage you to look inward and see where God might be calling you to listen. It might be in how you're spending time with God. It might be how you're spending your money. It could be how you spend your free time. I've found that in many cases, my dry seasons are caused by not doing what I know I'm supposed to be doing. Not as a punishment from God, but as a recognized misalignment from what he's called me to do.
Jesus is always with you. If you don't feel his presence, it's not because he's absent. Keep showing up, even if what you bring is smaller for a while, one page instead of three. And let the season do its work. Mine are where my roots have grown deepest.