What to Do When You Hit a Spiritual Slump
Are you stuck in a spiritual slump? Read these words from my recent post at Women Wielding the Word:
I remember reading the words on a sun-splattered spring dawn, and I could not honestly say I related. The words went like this: “My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God” (Psalm 84:2 NIV).
I want both my heart and my flesh to literally yearn – to hunger – for God, but there are plenty of mornings when I open my Bible with waning enthusiasm. A wise mentor once compared daily Bible reading to a daily bowl of oatmeal for breakfast. Most days, nothing unexpected happens when you eat the meal; nonetheless, it continues to nourish and sustain you day after day.
While I agree with this comparison, there are seasons when I’m desperate to fuel the fire for personal Bible study. I’ve found several key ingredients to fan the flame:
1. Get out of a spiritual slump by spending time with passionate people.
Have you ever noticed that if the people in your house are intent on snacking all evening long, it’s far more difficult to practice self-control than it is to join them on a chip-munching binge?
In the same way, spending time with people who are hungry to draw nearer to God ignites the same passion in me. There are a handful of friends in my life who talk about their Bible reading as if they’ve just had a very direct and personal conversation with God. They speak of obscure Old Testament passages as if they have directly heard the voice of God thundering from heaven.
These friends inspire me to open my Bible with an expectation to encounter God in the reading every day. Hunger for God is contagious.
2. Live outside your comfort zone.
The correlation between my zeal for Bible study and my passion for living out the gospel in my everyday life cannot be denied. In seasons when I’m deliberately following God out of my comfort zone, I always find myself more attentive to his voice in my everyday moments and more desperate for his truth as I open his written Word.
This doesn’t mean I have to plan an overseas missions trip every two months. It simply means I regularly ask God where I can follow him in sharing the gospel – whether by word or by deed – and I step out of the safety of my comfortable space to follow him.
. . . to keep reading, join me here at Women Wielding the Word.
