A lot of people quietly assume that if their spiritual life were healthy, it would feel clean and steady all the time. They assume that anger, disappointment, doubt, numbness, and dryness must mean something has gone badly wrong.
But that is not how real relationships work, and it is not how the Psalms present life with the Lord either. Some of the most important things God does in us happen in the seasons where we feel least impressive, least spiritual, and least alive. The question is not whether you ever hit the valley. The question is what you do there.
One time I was talking with a marriage counselor, and she said that all marriages that last have a cycle of rupture and repair.
Something happens that ruptures the relationship. It brings tension in. Somebody raises their voice more than they should have, and it creates tension. Somebody lets the other partner down in some way, and it creates tension. Somebody forgets to take out the trash. Somebody forgets to pick the kid up from school. It could be any number of things, but there’s a rupture.
And the mistake that so many couples make, she said, is thinking that those ruptures are bad signs for their relationship. That because we had this rupture, that means our love isn’t strong enough. Because we had this rupture, our marriage is doomed to fail, just like our parents’ marriages and their parents’ marriages and their parents’ marriages.
We have this purity mindset when it comes to our marriages where everything has to be totally perfect all the time. There can’t be any fights, any tension, any ruptures, or else the whole marriage is in jeopardy.
But she says if you go in with that mindset, then your marriage will fall apart because rupture is inevitable.
She said what actually matters is the repair that comes after the rupture. You come back together and you say, “Hey, all of those things happened. That doesn’t mean it’s okay. There may be some things that we need to talk about, but I still love you. I want to be with you.”
She said the thing that actually builds strong marriages is that repair process, not avoiding any and all ruptures.
And the thing that I find so interesting is that that is the way the Psalms present life with the Lord, too.
An actual relationship with the Lord does not consist of us just constantly saying, “God is good all the time. All the time, God is good.”
A real relationship with the Lord is sometimes going to involve us losing control and doubting the Lord’s goodness, doubting that we can trust Him, doubting that He is really there for us. An actual relationship with the Lord is sometimes going to involve us really wavering in our faith.
And yet those ruptures that we experience are not a sign that our relationship with the Lord is fake or that it’s doomed or that our faith isn’t real. Those ruptures are the wounds that open up the opportunity for repair.
It’s the process of coming back to the Lord after each of those ruptures that cements our bond more deeply than anything.
And I think we see that in the way that David will lose his ever-loving mind and seem almost like he’s walking away from the Lord and then come back stronger than ever.
That same thing is true for you and I.
The Lord is patient with us through all these ruptures.
Seasons of anger, disappointment, even doubt toward God are a normal part of real spirituality.
But there’s an even harder truth that we need to wrap our heads around together: these dry seasons aren’t just normal. They’re actually necessary.
Some of our deepest spiritual growth happens during seasons when we feel far from God in the moment.
There’s a really beautiful line in Psalm 119. It says:
“Before I was afflicted, I went astray; but now I observe your word . . . It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I may learn your statutes.” (Psalm 119:67, 71)
This is one of those things that they do not tell you in most sermons, Bible studies, whatever.
But so many of the most life-sustaining times I have spent with the Lord have been times where I did not enjoy myself at all in the moment. Some of the most spiritually transformative periods of my life were periods where I didn’t really feel very good about the Lord at that time.
It sounds insane even saying it, but there are times that I can look back on where my daily time with the Lord basically consisted of me either totally numb or straight up yelling at the Lord because of something that I felt like He was abandoning me to.
And in the moment, it felt like I was in an extremely spiritually dark place. And in a way, I definitely was.
But looking back, God was actually using all of those things to really radically transform me from the inside out, build a kind of dependence that I never even knew I needed.
Those were the spiritual food that He had for me. I just didn’t realize it.
I was waiting for some other spiritual food to come. I was waiting for better emotions. I was waiting to feel more passionate about Him.
But the food that I needed at that moment was not to feel more passionate about the Lord.
The food that I needed in that moment was God’s presence amidst my numbness and sadness and despair.
This spiritual dryness is actually the starting point for pretty much everything else we’ll experience in our life with the Lord.
Listen very carefully: spiritual dryness is not some anomaly that means that your spiritual life is in freefall. It’s actually the spiritual state that comes most naturally to us.
Spiritual dryness is your baseline.
All you have to do to spend the rest of your life in this dry spiritual desert is nothing.
But here’s what that means for us: it means that if you want to build a nourishing relationship with the Lord, you can’t wait till you feel like it. You have to start while you’re still in the desert.
And so the question is, how do we build a spiritual life when this spiritual dryness and distance and uncertainty is where we start?
The answer is by showing up.
That’s it.
It’s by showing up without the feelings that make you want to.
The way I like to put it is this: the only way to experience the mountaintop is to show up in the valley.
Now, the really incredible thing we learn when we trek through the Psalms is that this is also exactly how it goes with us and God.
He has loved us from before the foundation of the earth. But we learn love for Him slowly through a life together with Him.
Another way to put it would be this: your love for the Lord grows over time as you bring Him into each part of your life.
This is going to sound really weird, but it’s normal for you not to really love the Lord right now because this love for the Lord is something you are growing into.
Your affection for the Lord will grow as you continue to engage with Him, do your life with Him over time.
Love for the Lord is really not something that just immediately sweeps over you and takes control of you and drives you to go do all these things. There are a number of people who are just especially spiritually sensitive who seem to work like that. But that is not how it is for most of us.
Love for the Lord is something you cultivate.
And the way that you cultivate that love is by showing up.
That’s what Psalm 105:4 is talking about:
“Seek Yahweh and his strength. Seek his face forever more.” (Psalm 105:4)
You cultivate your love for the Lord by showing up again and again and again. Not by showing up and putting on a really spiritual face. Not by showing up and saying a bunch of really spiritual-sounding words. But by showing up honestly, you are actually cultivating your love for the Lord little bit by little bit.
When you show up and say, “Lord, I am here. Help my heart. Lord, I want to want You. Lord, I don’t particularly want You right now, but I want to want You. Lord, I don’t particularly love You right now, but I want to love You,” you are actually cultivating your love for the Lord little bit by little bit.
I don’t know if you’ve ever thought about it this way before. And maybe this is going to sound dumb, but this is true.
Wanting to love the Lord is loving the Lord.
Wanting to want the Lord is wanting the Lord.
And showing up day after day wanting to want the Lord, wanting to love the Lord, that is choosing to love.
Love is a choice that you make, and this is what that choice looks like.
And when you make that choice day in and day out, the Lord pours out His power in order to build love into you from the inside out. As you show up, regardless of how you feel in the moment, God is pouring into you.
He supplies you the desire to love Him, and then you follow through on that newfound desire by doing the things you would do if you felt love for Him. He supplies you the power to love Him, and then you follow through on that newfound power by actually loving Him. He is working in you to cultivate love for Him, and then you act on that love.
And that means that what it actually looks like to have a spiritual life is that day after day you take the next faithful step and trust that God is at work inside you through it.
That’s it.
Take the next faithful step and trust that God is at work inside you through it.
Mount Zion Baptist Church - Louisburg, NC 
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