Ever felt like you were buried in a place? Like you were abandoned, like you praying and nothing is working, like you locked up in a place? Like you’re spiritually alone? You know…you go through some certain things in life and you feel you may never come out of it alive or you feel God has forsaken you. They call it dry season and I call it desert and silent seasons – a time when you feel all alone in your life’s journey, a time when nothing good seems to be happening, a time when you feel stagnant, a time when it feels like God is far away from you, like He literally turned His back on you, a time when even your prayer/fasting wouldn’t change a thing, a time when you go through processes upon processes, intense pain and dealings, like a woman in travail…

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring? O my God, I cry in the day time, but thou hearest not: and in the night season, and am not silent. – Psalm 22:1-2

I know what this feels like because I have been there and it’s sure one hell of a place. But I want you to be comforted and encouraged because you are not experiencing anything new or abnormal. You are going through one of the most common experiences and phase of the Christian race, it’s for the development of your faith. You will survive and you will be out of the season sooner or later.

I love how Floyd McClung describes it as: “You wake up one morning and all your spiritual feelings are gone. You pray, but nothing happens. You rebuke the devil, but it doesn’t change anything. You go through spiritual exercises…you have friends pray for you…you confess every sin you can imagine, then go around asking forgiveness of everyone you know. You fast…still nothing. You begin to wonder how long this spiritual gloom might last. Days? Weeks? Months? Will it ever end?..It feels as if your prayers simply bounce off the ceiling. In utter desperation, you cry out. ‘What’s the matter with me?’ The truth is, there is nothing wrong with you!
God is real, no matter how you feel.
It’s non of His pleasure that we go through all of these but it’s all for our good and certainly to make us better and stronger. David felt same way in Psalm 22 but despite feeling lonely and forsaken by God, he chose to focus on the goodness of God and put his trust in Him regardless of how he was feeling. He worshiped, praised and proclaimed God’s faithfulness through his wandering thoughts, fears, pain and struggles.
 The deepest level of worship is praising God in spite of pain. Thanking God during a trial, trusting Him when tempted, surrendering while suffering and loving Him when He seems distant. – Rick Warren
When Job’s world fell apart and God was silent on Him for like thirty-seven chapters, it wasn’t easy but Job still found what to praise God for. This taught me a whole lot of things while I was going through same thing and I would just share a few of them here;

The Lord Has hidden himself from His people, but I trust Him and place my hope in Him. – Isaiah 8:17

When God feels far away from you:

1. He is closer to you than you think and He wants you to draw near to Him. No matter the circumstance that surrounds us, God is always there and He His always with us. Just because you don’t feel so, doesn’t mean He is not there. We are never alone!
2. He wants you to rely on Him. It’s easy to trust and rely on Him when all is going great in your life – like when He provides money for you, when He places food on your table, when you have nice and wonderful friends around, etc. But what happens when everything suddenly turns upside down? What happens when things don’t go as planned? What happens when He seems a million miles away like Don Moen will sing? During this time, He wants you to solely rely on Him, put your hope in Him and not in any man.
  
3. He wants you to GROW and MATURE. If you’re following me on any of my social media platform, you will remember I stretched more on this during the week because that’s sometimes the major goal of why we go through things like this. He wants to change and transform us into a better person, He wants us to grow from being a baby. And we all know that there is no easy path to glory, neither is their a glory without a story. I remember yelling at God when it got so hard on me then and He said to me “I am preparing you for something great, this processes are not to harm you or make you feel like I am not being fair to you. It’s to beautify you for my glory, to qualify you by my standard not by the world’s standard for where I am taking you to. So, instead of crying and yelling, why not pay the price now? After all, you said you wanted to be used by me greatly.” 
4. He wants you to trust and embrace His promises for you. During your times of dryness and desert seasons, you must patiently trust in Him and embrace His promises in His word for you. 

For He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. – Hebrews 13:5bb            

This trust in God’s word caused Job to remain faithful even though nothing made sense. He said “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.”
God is always present, even when you are unaware of Him and His presence is too profound to be measured by mere emotions. – Rick Warren
I’ve learned and grown so much through my dry and desert seasons knowing fully well that it was a training and preparation period of my life. So, if you are going through a similar or same experience, I want you to trust and hold God tight like never before. God has you in that season for a reason!

Know & Remind yourself this:

– He is with you
– He will never abandon you
– He is good and loving
– He cares
– He knows what you are going through
– He is all powerful
– He has a plan for your life
– He is in control
– He notices every detail of your life
– He will save you
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