“While the earth remains, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.” (Genesis 8:22)
Middy, a protegee, called me to complain about her frustration in the inability to pray. I was quick to respond, your case is not an isolated case, explaining to her further, about my own personal experiences of ‘dry prayer seasons’ referring to those times when you don’t have the energy or inspiration to do anything spiritual. It is that short period when you struggle
The truth is we will all at a point go through that period (season) of prayerlessness. When you really desire to pray, but you merely struggle in the place of prayer. You are desperate to hear from God in that season of prayerlessness but, nothing!
Do you find yourself in that season now? Here are some few helpful tips:
Be quiet.
Chill/Be still.
Listen to worship.
From my own experience, I hear God more when I’m not the one talking. Maybe, you have been talking too much, and God wants to speak.
Let me now talk about the CHRONOLOGICAL TIMING
We are aptly informed:
“TO EVERYTHING there is a season, and a time for every matter or purpose under heaven: A time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted. A time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, A time to rend and a time to sew, a time to keep silence and a time to speak.”(Ecclesiastes 3:1-2, 5, 7)
Everything that has life has a season. Prayer also has its share of seasons, it’s akin to the time of sowing and reaping when your labor finally gives birth to – joy, rejoicing, peace, success, breakthroughs, transformation, and miracles. You can call it the processing time between the promise and the manifestation. When it seems, nothing is happening despite all your efforts.
The difference between the waiting season and the time (NOW) season.
Winter Season
Everything will seem dormant. It’ll look like God has abandoned you, and you are alone. Answers are not forthcoming.
Remain steadfast, and faithful putting all your trust in God. Not some, but ALL OF YOUR TRUST. It is immediately after a promise or prophecy that your trust level in God would be tested. Like Joseph, who had a dream but there was no fulfillment instead found himself moving from pit to Potiphar’s house and prison.
You can ask Where was God when Hannah went to the annual prayer conference from year to year, and nothing came forth but childlessness? Where was God when her father and her conniving sister cheated Rachel, and yet she was the one who could not have a child making her contemplate suicide?
You may ask where was God when Zechariah and Elizabeth served and prayed for others who had their testimonies and yet they did not have any child(ren) of theirs.
The truth is God was actively involved, moving things behind the scene. When I have posed questions on His passiveness towards my plight, I clearly heard “I’m working things out for you. I ‘ll rescue you.” I’m also telling you, remain faithful, God is working things out. He has His timeline about events in our lives.
According to Robert H. Schuller, “Never cut a tree down in the wintertime. Never make a negative decision in the low time. Never make your most important decisions when you are in your worst moods. Wait. Be patient. The storms will pass. The spring will come.”
AUTUMN SEASON
This is a period of shedding and purging.
“He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and He will purify the priests, the sons of Levi, and refine them like gold and silver, that they may offer to the Lord offerings in righteousness.” (Malachi 3:3)
“Take away the dross from the silver, and there shall come forth [the material for] a vessel for the silversmith [to work up]”(Proverbs 25:4)
I want to call this season the time of Character building, preparation, and maturity.
It is a time when you take on the attitude of patience, tolerance, love, trust, and obedience. It is the time before spring. You can call it the testing time. ( Psalm 78:18 -20)
What you can do is to –
Continue to pray
Continue to praise
Continue to clean up
Continue to exercise patience
Continue to press your way through
SPRING SEASON
The spring season is a time of fresh revelations. Effortless you receive the honey out of the rock. At this point, you will begin to see the traces of answered prayers.
“So also will be the word that I speak; it does not return to me unfulfilled. My word performs my purpose and fulfills the mission I sent it out to accomplish.” (Isaiah 55:11)
SUMMER SEASON
The summer is a season of manifestation. It is the “KAIROS” time. It is the opportune time, designated time, the much awaited time, the time when the conditions are right for manifestations. (Psalm 102:13)
It is the season when your song changes like when Hannah’s story broke and she sang a new song. (1 Samuel 2: 1-10)
That kind of season is what King David spoke about in the passage below:
“I WAITED patiently and expectantly for the Lord, and He inclined to me and heard my cry. He drew me up out of a horrible pit [a pit of tumult and of destruction], out of the miry clay (froth and slime), and set my feet upon a rock, steadying my steps and establishing my goings. And He has put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many shall see and fear (revere and worship) and put their trust and confident reliance in the Lord. [Ps. 5:11.] Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) is the man who makes the Lord his refuge and trust, and turns not to the proud or to followers of false gods. Many, O Lord my God, are the wonderful works which You have done, and Your thoughts toward us; no one can compare with You! If I should declare and speak of them, they are too many to be numbered.” (Psalm 40:1-5 )
At this time, you must be
Sensitive and responsive to your opportunities.
Fervent in the spirit, praying until something happens!
On a final note while waiting, don’t doubt God. Keep trusting him. Don’t give up or take other options.
Be careful who you listen to at this period.
Learn to enjoy God. Demonstrate your love not because of what you want from Him but for who He is.
Don’t rush out, don’t strive. Don’t struggle. Just wait
Hear Job out-
“If a man dies, will he live again? I will wait all the days of my struggle Until my change and release will come.” (Job 14:14)
Sowing time is never a pleasant time; it involves more works but the outcome is satisfying, the fruits are out. The Psalmist concluded –
“Those who sow their tears as seeds will reap a harvest with joyful shouts of glee.” (Psalm 126:5)
It means no matter the pain of now you shall come through and you shall testify. (Isaiah 51:11)
Are you experiencing spiritual dryness right now?
What are you doing about it?
WELCOME TO YOUR SEASON OF MANIFESTATIONS!
