Dryness in Prayer
One
Wandering Through a Desert
One of the most iconic images of the Old Testament is the Chosen People wandering through the desert. For years and years, for a generation in fact, they wandered through the desert. Now, stop a moment and ask yourself: why is it so unpleasant to be stuck in a desert? Why would it be so awful to live in a desert, year after year?
Well, there are at least two reasons why no one wants to live in a desert. First of all, because it’s unpleasant. There aren’t many opportunities for pleasure, in a desert. It’s hot, and it’s dry, and the landscape stretches out the same, mile after mile.
Second, because it’s unproductive. Not much grows in a desert. You have a hard time farming or gardening. No matter what you try to do, it’s not likely to bear much fruit. Almost everything we humans do, we do either because it’s pleasing or because it’s productive. And a desert offers neither pleasure nor productivity.
And the point is, it’s not just the Israelites who had to wander in a dry wasteland for years. It is often the greatest challenge of the Christian life of prayer that our prayer feels like a desert. It feels dry. It feels like there’s no pleasure, and there’s no productivity. So what do we do when we end up in a desert of prayer? How do we deal with spiritual dryness?
Two
The Desert of Beginners
For everyone who is far from God, prayer seems totally unpleasant, and totally unproductive. The reason people never start praying is because they find it boring and difficult, “and they don’t get anything out of it.” In other words, everyone starting out feels as though prayer is unpleasant and unproductive.
If that’s you, if you’ve never gotten into the habit of prayer because you find it unpleasant and unproductive, well, you need to head out into that desert right now. Because God is in the desert. God is in prayer. The only way you can make it to the promised land, the land of Milk and Honey, is through prayer. The only way you can escape the slavery of Egypt, the slavery to vice and sin and death and total human dysfunction, the only escape is through the desert of prayer.
It may not look very attractive starting out, but it’s your only chance of escape and your only chance of happiness. So it’s time to start now.
Three
Pleasure and Productivity in Prayer
Once you really get into the rhythm of regular prayer, you’ll wonder how you ever managed without it. As it turns out, once you make it a part of your life, there is nothing so delightful as prayer. Nothing brings you peace and gratitude and an understanding of God’s plan and your place in it.
There’s nothing as productive as prayer. When you talk to God, and contemplate the Gospels, and the lives of the saints, the advice of the mystics. Only then do you really get a clear sense of the right decisions to make, the right way to live. Only if you pray every day do you have any assurance that you’re not screwing everything up all the time.
When you pray, you see how your decisions become better, that you’re living your life better. Prayer stops being a desert. It’s an oasis, a place of refreshment and sustenance. It’s what makes it possible to live right and to enjoy yourself as you do.
Four
Returning to the Desert
Even if you have been regularly praying for a long time, with great results, odds are that suddenly you’ll find yourself in the desert again. There’s a good chance that even if you’ve been faithful to prayer, and you’ve reaped the benefits, you’ll find yourself stuck in a long, period of dryness.
Why is this? Well, there are a lot of reasons, a lot of ways to explain why dryness in prayer is inevitable. But for now, think of it this way: As we said earlier, it sometimes seems as though everything we do is motivated by either pleasure or productivity. We spend time, for instance, we people, either because we enjoy them or because it’s somehow useful to spend time with them. But, actually, the only true test of whether you love someone is when you’re willing to be committed to that person even when you don’t feel like you’re getting anything out of it.
You only know you really love your spouse, or your kids, or your parents, or your friends, when you spend time with them even though you don’t enjoy their company. When you do things for them even though you don’t expect to benefit from the relationship in any way.
So, dryness in prayer is the greatest chance for us to show our love for God. Because it’s those times when we can say, “Lord, I’ll show up for prayer not because of what I get out of it, but because I love You. I will wait for you in the desert because I love You.”
Five
The Joy and Productivity Produced by “Dry” Prayer
So our job is to stay true to prayer, even in the dryness, even as it feels like an endless wandering in the desert. Even though we may not feel it at the time, our prayer is leading us to supreme joy and productivity. Even if it doesn’t feel like our prayer is giving us useful insights, or strengthening our resolutions, or making us more peaceful and virtuous – it is.
Like children who don’t realize they’re growing, and who are surprised when they measure themselves years later to find themselves way taller, so too, even our “unproductive” prayer, if we stick with it, will slowly and imperceptibly cause us to grow spiritually, until we and those around us are shocked at our sudden spiritual maturity.
Even if it doesn’t feel joyful, or pleasant, rest assured that, like the Israelites, God is leading us through the desert to the land of milk and honey. He is bringing us to Himself, who is the satisfaction of every desire, and delight without end.