Sometimes we wake up one day and feel different. Nothing has changed, except our mood. We feel dry or worse yet – dried up. We are thirsty for something more. Something greater. We are uninspired, emotionless – emotionally and spiritually dehydrated and thirsty.

I just spent the last two weeks up in Montana, visiting my parents. They live right on the banks of the Kootenai River. While it can be unsafe to get in the river where they are located, you can sit at the water’s edge and enjoy it any time, for as long as you like. The peaceful sounds as the water laps against the rocks at the sides is rejuvenating.

I spent a few different times down there at the water’s edge, sitting on a rock and watching the sunset or thinking about different things, or waiting for my dad’s boat to come around the corner. As I sat there, I wondered why I was feeling so dry lately. I was craving – thirsting – to be filled up, drenched with the spirit of God and pick up where, for some reason, I had left off. And then I realized that sometimes the dry times are where we find more of God. The times where we feel withered and out of juice. The times where there is absolutely nothing we can do to get filled up, except to rest in Him and trust Him to bring us through that very empty and lonely place and into a place of spiritual abundance.

For writers, it is often suggested that when you feel you are in the throws of writer’s block, the best thing to do is just to keep writing, regardless of how you feel. Get something on paper. Eventually, you’ll be back in the saddle and going once again. Walking in spiritual deserts is somewhat similar. You keep putting one foot in front of the other, knowing that it won’t be an oasis you’ll find in one of your tomorrows, but eventually you find the river of life. How much more refreshing is a river or body of water after you have just come out from the desert! How much more it is appreciated! A river where you can be drenched with cool, dripping water that saturates the dry places and leaves you refreshed.

If you find yourself in a ‘dry’ place today, for whatever reason – keep walking on the path He is leading you. Your river may be just around the corner, where God is waiting to refresh your spirit and fill you anew.