"O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water." — Psalm 63:1 (ESV)
If you’ve walked with the Lord for any length of time, you’ve hit a stretch when He feels far off. Prayer goes flat. The Bible reads like an instruction manual rather than a love letter. The quiet time that once fed you now feels like a chore you can barely motivate yourself to keep up. I know that stretch well — I go through phases when communion with the Lord feels dull, and everything in me wants to let it slide.
David knew it too. He wrote Psalm 63 from a literal wilderness and turned his thirst into a prayer: “earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you… as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” Notice what he doesn’t do — he doesn’t wait to feel close to the Lord before seeking Him. The dryness drives him to seek harder.
F.B. Meyer helped me here, writing more than a century ago about why believers drift from the Lord. A passage of his stopped me cold: “No number of meetings, no fellowship with Christian friends, no amount of Christian activity can compensate for the neglect of the still hour. When you feel least inclined for it, there is most need to make for your closet with the shut door. Do for duty’s sake what you cannot do as a pleasure, and you will find it become delightful.” I know some of that is difficult to read, but the message is simple: quiet time is key, and when it feels dry, that’s the sign to dig deeper.
Meyer even hands you something to do when you’re feeling dry: when you can’t pray for yourself, pray for others; when your own desire runs dry, take a verse and turn it into a petition; or take one of the Lord’s mercies and turn it into praise. The dryness doesn’t mean the water’s gone. It means you keep coming back to the well until the water rises again.
I can tell you what happened the last time I did this, because it’s happened more than once. I kept the appointment even though I didn’t feel a thing — same chair, same early hour, same open Bible — and for days it felt like talking into an empty room. Nothing dramatic. No breakthrough morning when the heavens opened. But slowly, without any single moment I could point to, the delight began to return. A verse I’d read a dozen times caught me off guard. A prayer I’d been praying out of duty turned honest halfway through. The water was there the whole time; I’d just needed to keep coming back long enough for my heart to hush. That’s Meyer’s promise, and it’s proven true in my life more times than I can count: duty kept long enough becomes delight, and the feeling follows the faithfulness, not the other way around.
Here’s what neither David nor Meyer will do: wait for the feeling to return before seeking the Lord. They seek Him because they’re dry. That’s the secret hidden within a spiritual drought — it isn’t a signal to pull back; it’s an invitation to press in at the one door where the water actually is.
BIG IDEA: When communion with God runs dry, the answer isn’t to wait for the feeling to return — it’s to keep showing up at His door until it does.
Questions to Ponder: Are you in a dry stretch right now — where prayer feels flat and your time with the Lord has become a chore? Be honest about how you’ve been responding: pulling back because it’s hard, or pressing in because you need Him? And what might God be doing in the dryness itself — what is your thirst trying to tell you about where life is truly found?
Application: With your journal in hand, make it the place you get honest with the Lord when it feels dry — because writing is something you can do when you’re struggling to feel. First, keep the appointment: same chair, same hour. Date the page and begin, even if you feel like you’ve got nothing. Use the pen to bring what’s buried to the surface. Say the hard thing plainly: What’s disappointed you? What’s hurt? Where has your heart gone cold — and why? Is it a wound you’ve been carrying, a busyness that’s crowded Him out, a sin you’ve been sidestepping? Don’t tidy it up for God; He already knows. Pour it out the way David did from his wilderness — he named his thirst to the Lord without flinching, and his psalm rose from that dry land to a soul “satisfied as with fat and rich food” (Psalm 63:5). Let your honesty rise the same way, ending in a cry for Him to satisfy you again: “Lord, I’m dry. I don’t feel You. Reignite my thirst; make my soul long for You again.” Then keep coming back, same chair, same time, just a new date — even if the emptiness remains. Weeks from now you’ll read back and see what you couldn’t see in the moment — the thirst slowly returning, proof that the feeling follows the faithfulness. That honest record is you, coming back to the well in the dark — until the water rises again.