“Spiritual Recovery: When I Don’t See God Anymore”
Sermon Title: Spiritual Recovery: When I Don’t See God Anymore
Scripture: Psalm 42 ESV
Introduction
In our new sermon series on Spiritual Recovery, we’ll be looking at Psalm 42 which is a maskil. A maskil is a song that gives instructions and Psalm 42 gives us instructions on how God helps us to recover from the times and seasons of spiritual dryness when we don’t feel God anymore in our life.
Spiritual Dryness
The psalmist expresses his spiritual dryness by talking about his thirst and desperation for the presence of God. The last part of verse 2 tells us that despite his desire for God, he doesn’t feel God’s presence.
In verse 3, the psalmist continues to build up his distress. He is brought to tears, and his enemies mock him saying, “Where is your God?” (Psalm 42:3). The sad thing is, we also ask this question in those moments when we don’t feel God’s presence.
In verse 4, the psalmist looks back on the times when everything was great—the good old days. Do you remember the times when you felt so near to God, when you could feel God’s presence as if He was standing right beside you, when you could hear God’s voice so clearly and joy overflowed in your life? And the misery that comes when you’re not? That’s what the psalmist is talking about.
For many Christians who genuinely desire God’s presence, we struggle with times and seasons of spiritual dryness. We don’t feel God in any way, and our walk of faith that was once so vibrant starts to lose its colours. And many Christians wonder if something is wrong.
Now, the truth is that all the difficulty, trouble, confusion, and struggle we go through in our spiritual journey is ultimately due to our brokenness which is rooted in our sinful nature. But that doesn’t always mean that your sin is the cause of your spiritual dryness. The problem is that it can quickly become a sin issue when left alone.
It can begin with changes in your life. It’s not that you’ve intentionally rejected God, but your school, work, kids, family, plans for the future, and things that need your time and attention can cause you to re-prioritize the things of God. It’s not that God is not important. Life gets crazy and busy, as we always say. And without meaning to, God is bit by bit moved away from the center of our lives.
And that can lead to numerous things that will dry up your spirit:
You begin to neglect your time with God. You begin to isolate yourself spiritually and physically from the body of Christ. Your busyness always wins, and you tell yourself that you’ll spend more time with God and the church when things settle down—but let’s be real: it never settles down.
Your relationship with God becomes routine, making you spiritually passive. For those serving in the church, serving God replaces the time you spend with God alone. Instead of seeking God, you seek things that give immediate satisfaction. You stop thinking about and remembering the things God has done in your life.
You never intentionally walked away from God, but at some point you find that you’re not exactly walking with Him either.
The common movement is:
Attention shifts → priorities shift → habits shift → desire weakens → our soul becomes increasingly spiritually dry, and God begins to feel distant until we just can’t seem to feel God anymore.
So when we are spiritually dry, when we can’t seem to hear God’s voice, feel His presence, or feel the touch of His love and grace, what are we to do?
Verse 5 gives us the answer. The psalmist asks his own soul why it is cast down and then commands himself, “Hope in God…” (Psalm 42:5).
And this is the answer God gives us through the psalmist in the midst of our spiritual dryness: HOPE IN GOD.
What is hope?
Hope is often defined as a feeling of wanting something to happen, a strong desire with expectation. But our understanding of hope as God’s people is that Jesus Christ is our eternal hope. Christ is the only hope for this broken world and all of us who live in it. He is our constant hope through the Holy Spirit who lives inside of us and remains with us, even in the moments when we can’t feel His presence.
Brothers and sisters, according to the Bible, hope is more than your emotions and feelings or believing that something will happen. Biblical hope is something that we practice as part of our spiritual discipline.
Hope in God consists of seven practices.
1. Wait
Romans 8 tells us that if we hope for what we do not see, “we wait for it with patience” (Romans 8:24–25).
Wait upon the Lord. His silence does not mean His absence. And be patient. Impatience leads to taking things into your own hands instead of trusting God’s timing.
2. Endure
Paul tells us that suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, and character produces hope (Romans 5:3–5).
Waiting and enduring sometimes go hand in hand. But it is not the will of God that we endure in vain. God has a purpose in mind. Even in your spiritual dryness, endure, because you will be tempted to allow your feelings and emotions to be your guide instead of the Spirit of God.
3. Rejoice
Paul tells us, “Rejoice in hope…” (Romans 12:12).
Rejoice in Christ who is our hope. Not in your circumstances, but rejoice in Him who can deliver you. And if He has allowed tribulations to continue in your life, rejoice because Christ is not only in control, but He is with you in your tribulation.
4. Speak and Praise
The psalmist speaks directly to his own soul again: “Hope in God; for I shall again praise him…” (Psalm 42:11).
This is a lamentation. We are to bring our honest emotions, pouring out the pain and grief in our hearts to the Lord. This is the place where the truth you believe and the reality of your experiences come together.
But it is also important what we speak and how we speak in faith. Practicing hope is about speaking truth into our circumstances when our experiences and emotions say otherwise. This is the path that leads to praising again.
5. Seek
Paul tells us to “seek the things that are above” and to set our minds there (Colossians 3:1–2).
We are to seek and set our minds on Christ. It is about the orientation of our attention and setting a direction that shifts your attention away from the things that shifted your attention away from God.
6. Remember
Paul tells Timothy, “Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead…” (2 Timothy 2:8).
Biblical hope is not about looking toward an uncertain future and hoping for the best. Biblical hope is about looking backwards to what Christ has done on the cross for us as the ultimate assurance that allows us to look and move forward into any circumstance without fear.
If you truly believe that Christ died on the cross for you, that He rose again from the dead, that your sins have been forgiven, and that Jesus loves you, who else can you trust than the One who gave everything for you?
7. Live It Out
Peter tells believers to prepare their minds for action and “set your hope fully on the grace” that is coming, before immediately calling them to obedience and holiness (1 Peter 1:13–15).
Hope produces obedience in our life. When we are practicing biblical hope, the things that we hope for begin with how we live before God right now—in your circumstances, in your spiritual dryness—and not just when it feels good to do so.
Brothers and sisters, spiritual maturity is not about whether or not you feel spiritual, whether you feel God’s presence every day, or whether you hear His voice or not. Spiritual maturity is about how you respond in the times when you don’t feel anything at all. It is in those moments that your faith will truly be demonstrated.
Conclusion
Does practicing these seven things mean that once you do them, suddenly your spirit will be rejuvenated and you’ll feel refreshed and happy again?
No. At least not usually.
If it did, it would mean that we’re able to recover by our own power. Only God can do that. It is the power of God working within our spiritual dryness that creates abundant life and a fountain of living water that will never dry.
What we are doing by practicing hope is answering God’s invitation for us to be participants in His work.
It’s like when you’re at the dentist and the dentist asks you to open your mouth. Opening your mouth doesn’t count as actually doing the work. You open your mouth so that the dentist can do the work.
And when you practice biblical hope in God, verses 6–10 show us how God may transform us.
In verse 6, the psalmist says that although his soul is cast down, “therefore I remember you…” (Psalm 42:6).
Despite your circumstances, experiences, and emotions, God can make you into a person who remembers the Lord your God.
Then the psalmist describes the overwhelming experience of God’s waves going over him (Psalm 42:7). Deep calls to deep. You feel overwhelmed as if you have one wave crashing on you after another. However, like the psalmist who notices that God has allowed these waves, God can make you into a person who is able to see beyond the crashing waves to see the sovereign hand of God behind it.
In verse 8, the psalmist speaks of the Lord commanding His steadfast love by day and His song being with him at night (Psalm 42:8).
God can make you into a person who at the moment may be spiritually dry, but you grow in your faith to know that His presence, His faithfulness, and His goodness are not dependent on your feelings and experiences. He’s been there the whole time.
Then in verse 9, the psalmist says, “I say to God, my rock…” before asking why God has forgotten him (Psalm 42:9).
God will teach you how to truly pray. Your circumstances have not changed. You are still struggling in your spiritual dryness, nor have your feelings changed. But now you make the same confession that the psalmist makes:
You are my rock.
That becomes the center of your prayer.
Brothers and sisters, lastly in verse 10, the enemies continue to mock the psalmist by asking, “Where is your God?” (Psalm 42:10).
In your spiritual dryness, when you can’t seem to feel God in your life anymore, your enemy will mock you saying:
Where is your God?
God can transform you to become a person who says:
“He is right here.”
Hope in God.
Hope interrupts the fear and despair and hopelessness that tries to swallow you up in your spiritual dryness. Hope challenges our circumstances and feelings so that they will not have the last word in your life.
Hope separates the present from the final outcome and the final victory in Christ.
Hope sustains our faithfulness before feelings recover.
Hope makes our memory into confidence and not just a nostalgia trip about the good old days.
Hope is Christ Himself. And in the unstable and shaken heart, let the hope in Christ be the stable anchor in your life.
Reflection
Brothers and sisters, as much as it excites me and encourages me to hear about how God’s presence has been powerfully witnessed in your life, and as much as I wish for so much more of that in your life, I am many times more encouraged and blessed when I hear about how you have been steadfast and faithful in the times when you’ve been spiritually dry.
When you can’t feel God in your life, when He’s been silent, when you’re reading Scripture and praying but it doesn’t feel like it used to—how have you responded?
The Lord shows us that the answer to recovering from spiritual dryness is to hope in the Lord.
And perhaps you noticed that the common factor between all seven practices of hope is accepting the invitation from the Lord and making yourself available to Him.
One of the ways you can do that is by signing up for Life Group this season.
As you’ve seen the announcements, I’m sure you’ve thought about your circumstances. You may be thinking about the time, energy, and commitment when you feel there are other priorities that are more important. For parents, it may be your children. For others, school or work. Or you may be going through a season of spiritual dryness or other circumstances that make you feel like you can’t afford to participate.
But brothers and sisters, I encourage you to think about it from a different perspective.
When you consider how powerfully God can work in your life, the ways He can heal and recover you, and this possibly being a place where God’s power and the realities of our life meet:
Can you afford not to sign up?
The Lord our God invites you today to practice hope, for our hope is in God.
May the hope in God give you renewed expectations for a recovery of your spirit where you will praise again.
