Many believers experience seasons when spiritual energy feels drained. The prayer closet seems empty, the Bible lies unopened, and even when read, its words feel flat. Patience wears thin, tempers flare more easily, and guilt lingers like a constant, low-grade fever. Life appears to be in decline, and a cold fear whispers that perhaps grace has been taken for granted, or worse, that one is drifting away from God’s hand.
This experience, however, is not a sign of impending apostasy. Rather, it is the inevitable encounter of a human being with personal limits—and it is precisely in this terrain that God performs His most profound work of grace. The real issue is not the weakness itself, but the meaning assigned to that weakness regarding one’s standing before God.
Your Condition Is Not Your Position
The unshakable Pauline truth to grasp is that security and acceptance with God rest entirely on the finished work of Christ, not on fluctuating spiritual feelings or activity. The Apostle Paul addressed the Corinthian church—a community marked by division, sin, and confusion—by affirming their position: “Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints” (1 Corinthians 1:2). He thanked God for the grace already given to them.
Paul spoke to what was eternally true in Christ, not to their messy, failing condition. While the condition may feel like a desert, the position is an oasis: believers are “complete in him” (Colossians 2:10). Peace with God is present now because they have been “justified by faith” (Romans 5:1). This peace is not a mood to be mustered but the settled, legal outcome of the cross. When the heart condemns, remember that “God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things” (1 John 3:20). He sees the dust and knows the frame—and He has already settled the account.
The struggle for assurance often arises from mixing two incompatible realities. As one transcript explains: “If a believer struggles with assurance of salvation, it is because they are mixing the grace that Christ provides with the righteousness that the law requires.” Attempting to hold onto the free gift of grace while simultaneously climbing a ladder of performance is an impossible, exhausting tension. One must either lay hold of grace or submit fully to the law’s demand—and “whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all” (James 2:10). Both cannot be held at once.
The Purpose of the Dry Season
This experience is not unique; it is almost a universal mark of spiritual growth. Many honest believers report feeling weaker than before, praying less, seeking less, and sensing less anointing. This is not backsliding but often God’s method. Paul described it: “Though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day” (2 Corinthians 4:16). The wearing down, drying up, and sense of futility serve to bring believers to the end of their own strength. The flesh—self-reliant and determined to fix things—is consumed so dependence on it ceases.
Consider Jacob, who wrestled with God and was crippled in the thigh. From that day, he walked with a limp—a mark of transformation into Israel, a prince who prevails with God. Weakness became the doorway to dependence. As one reflection notes, “We cannot get our eyes off our sin while we’re so strong. We are too strong, and our instinct is, I’ve got to do something about it… God has to wear us out.” Burnout, short tempers, and mental overload all declare the same truth: You cannot do this. This is a sacred place because Christ’s promise is for the weak: “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).
Where to Begin? Start with What Is True
The starting point is to cease the futile attempt to reconcile failures with salvation. They do not need reconciling. Salvation was never a contract based on performance; it is a testament enacted by Christ’s death and given as an inheritance.
If prayer life is minimal, come anyway. Hebrews 4:16 invites not the spiritually energetic but the needy: “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.” Even exhausted, silent coming is a prayer.
If there is fear of moral decline, this sensitivity may be the Spirit’s kindness, revealing what Christ has already forgiven so that self-management can cease and rest in the finished work can begin.
The gospel’s order is crucial. It is often reversed: “If I could just stop sinning, then I could have peace with God.” But God declares the opposite: “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1). Peace comes first. Holiness does not produce peace; peace with God—received by faith—produces holiness.
Rest Is a Person for Today
Rest is often misunderstood as merely ceasing to worry about eternal condemnation. That is spiritual milk. Solid food is Christ Himself as the present portion. Hebrews presents rest as the “good land,” a picture of enjoying Christ’s riches today. The wilderness generation died outside the land because of unbelief—they never tasted the inheritance God had for them.
Spiritually, believers can likewise live under a cloud, convinced “God is disappointed with me,” despite knowing their sins are forgiven. That is not rest but a self-made wilderness. True rest is actively partaking of Christ, drinking the living water now. As one transcript warns, if only the milk of basic forgiveness is held onto, “eventually you lose even that because you’ve got nothing to hold on to, nothing to enjoy, nothing to strengthen you today.”
The dryness felt may be God making believers thirsty, bringing them to a river. He is the river—the strength and life. Filled with Christ, even mundane tasks become profoundly satisfying. Searching for purpose ceases, replaced by feeding from the Tree of Life.
Today, take a step out of survival mode. Do not try to fix everything. Simply agree with God:
- Agree that you are loved, right now, in your weakness.
- Agree that you are accepted, right now, in your failure.
- Agree that you are safe, right now, in His hand.
- Agree that “He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
Your standing is secure. Your weakness qualifies you for His strength. This desert is the path to the river. Look away from your feet and look to His face. Start there.
