Church…blah, blah, blah.
Bible reading…blah, blah, blah.
Prayer…blah, blah, blah.
Worship…blah, blah, blah.
Do you ever feel like you’re living a blah spiritual life? I definitely do. I’ve been a Christian since I was a little girl, so I’ve learned how I should act and what I should do as a Christian. But sometimes I get tired of doing the “right” things.
Lost in the Spiritual Desert
If you’ve been saved for a while, you probably know exactly how I feel—like you’re walking through a spiritual desert. You feel distant from Jesus, but you can’t understand why. You try to obey Scripture, but you’re spiritually exhausted. You can’t figure out why you feel so unmotivated to follow Jesus because He’s the only One who loved you enough to die for you.
Friends, I’m going to let you in on a little secret: Our feelings often don’t make sense. In fact, they’re extremely unreliable. I’ve felt far from God for much of my Christian life, but that doesn’t mean that He’s actually been far from me.
The same is true for you. If you’re a genuine follower of Jesus, you can’t let your emotions dictate the Truth. Rather, the Truth must dictate your emotions. Just because you feel (or have felt) far from Jesus doesn’t mean you are far from Him.
Hope in the Spiritual Desert
Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. (Romans 6:8-11 NASB)
The beauty of Scripture is that it remains true, no matter how we feel. Whether we’re on fire for Christ or we feel distant from Him, the Truth doesn’t change. And the Truth is this: We’re dead to sin and alive to God because of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.
There are many reasons why you might feel far from God. Perhaps you’ve been letting a particular sin come between you and Him. Maybe you haven’t been diligently seeking Him. Or perhaps God is using this season of spiritual dryness to teach you that He’s faithful and He’s worthy of your devotion, no matter how you feel.
Honestly, I often feel like I’m not getting anything out of going to church. It can feel like my prayers are bouncing off the ceiling or like I’m singing to a silent Savior. I do feel tempted at times to believe that reading Scripture is a waste of time because nothing in it is “speaking” to me.
But ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether we’re on a spiritual high or a spiritual low. We’re called to keep doing what Jesus tells us to do. Living the Christian life isn’t supposed to give us something because we already have everything we need. After all, Christ already gave us Himself. Now we’re supposed to give Him something—our trust and obedience. He doesn’t need these things from us, but He deserves them.
Your feelings will fail you, but your Savior won’t. Your heart may be weary, but His is strong. He wants to have a close relationship with you, but He can’t have that if you give up on Him. He’s closer than you think, friends.
This post was originally published here.
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