When the Well Runs Dry: A Devotional on Spiritual Disconnection

 

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" - Psalm 22:1

The Silence

There are seasons when heaven feels like brass and our prayers seem to bounce back unanswered. The familiar warmth of God's presence grows cold, and the songs that once stirred our hearts fall flat on our lips. We sit in empty pews or kneel beside our beds, going through the motions of devotion while feeling nothing but the echo of our own longing.

This is not failure. This is not abandonment. This is the wilderness.

Scripture Reflection

Even Jesus experienced this profound disconnection. On the cross, He cried out the opening words of Psalm 22, giving voice to what feels like divine abandonment. Yet this same psalm that begins with anguish ends with declaration: "Future generations will be told about the Lord. They will proclaim his righteousness, declaring to a people yet unborn: He has done it!"

The psalmist David knew these dry places too: "As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?" (Psalm 42:1-2)

Even in the thirst, there is seeking. Even in the dryness, there is desire.

The Hidden Work

In seasons of disconnection, God may be doing His deepest work. Like a plant developing stronger roots during drought, our faith often grows most during times when we cannot feel God's nearness. The mystics called this "the dark night of the soul" - not a punishment, but a sacred space where we learn to love God not for how He makes us feel, but for who He is.

Mother Teresa served the poorest of the poor in Calcutta for decades while experiencing profound spiritual dryness. In her private letters, she wrote of feeling "terrible pain of loss, of God not wanting me, of God not being God, of God not really existing." Yet she continued to serve, to love, to show Christ's hands and feet to a broken world.

Her disconnection did not disqualify her devotion - it deepened it.

Prayer for the Dry Season

*God of the wilderness and the garden, I come to You in my emptiness, carrying questions instead of praise, bringing doubt instead of certainty.

I cannot feel You, but I choose to seek You. I cannot hear you, but I will keep listening. I cannot sense Your presence, but I will not stop believing in Your love.

Help me to trust that You are working even when I cannot see it, that You are present even when I cannot feel it, that You are faithful even when I cannot understand it.

May this season of dryness become a season of deeper roots, of faith that stands not on feeling but on Your unchanging character.

In the darkness, be my light. In the silence, be my peace. In the distance, be my hope.

Amen.*