One of the almost universal experiences which spiritual-minded persons at some time have to pass through is that of dryness in prayer. It is spoken of by all deep spiritual writers who treat of the interior life in any way. It is always a great puzzle to souls while passing through it. It tries their faith and perplexes the judgment, and is a cause of much annoyance. It cannot be defined, but it can be described and its general features noted. Among them are the following:

1. Dryness of thought. The mind seems to be very sluggish on spiritual matters and to act slowly, and only with more or less effort. Many persons find their intellectual faculties bright and active on all other matters, but as soon as they begin a season of prayer there comes a numbness over the thinking power. This mental dryness is especially noticeable in two particulars. One as dullness of perception. It seems difficult to form distinct ideas of God, or of the three divine personalities, or of the attractiveness of Jesus, or of the beauty and richness of the promises, or of our relationship to God. A mist hangs over the spiritual landscape, and while all divine objects are there, they seem very indistinct. In the next place this dryness of thought is manifest by narrowness in the range of vision. The mind lacks immensity and largeness of apprehension. This will be especially trying to persons who are naturally of a broad, liberal mind, and who love a vast sweep of vision. In great dryness the mind seems cramped, like a sort of spiritual headache. All this is very trying to persons who love to pray with all their understanding as well as their hearts.

2. Dryness in feeling. There seems at such times to be no moisture in the affections. The emotions will not respond to God and truth as it seems they ought to. It seems difficult to make the soul behave as in the presence of God, and to make itself feel that God is a blessed reality. There is a conscious belief in all divine verities, and there is no lack in theology, but the person of God seems vague, He seems to have faded out in an impersonal system of laws, and it seems difficult for the heart to make itself feel alive toward Christ. Also, this sterility in the emotions is toward the truth of God as well as His person. At such times the Scriptures seem dry, and the sweet pathos of its biography seems gone, and there is no music in its heavenly imagery, and no spicy pungency in its promises. There is a dearth of tears, and the prayer seems a force-put, a mere skeleton of will power, without the warm flesh of holy feeling.

3. Dryness of utterance. The nervous system partakes of the dearth and the tongue seems unable for fluent expression. Oftentimes this state is accompanied with physical drowsiness, and the devout person, who really wants to pray with all his heart, falls asleep in the very attitude of prayer. There have been many instances where very spiritual people have had unaccountable attacks of drowsiness in prayer, and fall asleep against all their will power, and sometimes this has continued more or less for months. I am not explaining the reason for all this now, but only stating facts, though there are reasons for all these phenomena which form a part of the soul’s testing in a life of faith.

4. Distractions in prayer. The mind seems to lose the ability of concentration in divine things. Oftentimes when persons begin to pray in secret, the imagination becomes eccentric and flies hither and thither on vain or absurd subjects. The law of mental association seems caught in a tempest and, with the most intense desire to worship God and draw near to Him in communion, great waves of foolish thoughts break in tantalizing distractions on the mind, and the soul is puzzled to know if it really is worshiping God or not.

Now let us notice the uses to be made of this dryness.

First, if the soul is entirely yielded to God these seasons of dryness will serve to purify the will, and make prayer to be more perfectly the fixed and deliberate act of choice. The will, more than any other part of our nature, expresses the depth of our character in the sight of God. And when our prayers are not accompanied with brilliance and sweep of perception, or with freshness of feeling, but are the firm attitude of the will, a stronger evidence of the worshipful purpose of the heart is given. It is a law in the physical organism that a faculty or member becomes intensified in its action as the associate faculties or members are destroyed; as when persons are blind, the ear doubles its acuteness for the hearing of sound, and those who are deaf have greater quickness of vision. So it is in the spiritual life; when the will has to act, as it were alone, without the aid of vivid thoughts and feelings, it becomes more purely the act of the moral and religious personality; while prayer in such a state seems very unsatisfactory to the believer, it is in reality very pleasing to God, because such a prayer rises from the deepest fountains of religious choice and determination.

In the second place, seasons of dryness give the soul an opportunity to test and perfect its holy intentions. It learns to worship God in the spirit and to examine its intentions to live alone for God. Such a soul might appropriately say, “Thou art my blessed God, my Creator, Redeemer, Preserver, and last End. I desire with all my heart to love Thee, to worship Thee, to please Thee, but I am a poor helpless creature, loaded with numberless infirmities, afflicted with this dryness in prayer, with dullness in my mind and lack of feeling in my heart, and with many foolish distractions of fancy, and often drowsy in body; yet, in spite of it all, I choose Thee to be my God, my Justifier, my Sanctifier, my Provider, my All in All, for whom I intend to live, and who art the ultimate object of my existence; accept of me, not according to my thoughts or feelings, but according to the singleness of my intention to be eternally Thine, through the merit of Thy precious Son Jesus, and by the operation of Thine own eternal Spirit.” This habit of examining and purging the intentions forms in the soul a deep interior prayer, and out of it comes the heavenly habit of mental prayer; and when the believer learns the art of continual mental prayer, it is like a new world in the religious life. If the soul perseveres in a life of prayer there will come a time when these seasons of dryness will pass away, and the soul will be led out, as David says, “into a large place,” but the margin reads, “into a moist place.” Then all the phenomena of prayer come back with redoubled freshness and vigor, the three persons of the ever-blessed Godhead are clearly apprehended by the eye of faith, Bible truth becomes sweet and fascinating, and worship becomes not only prayer but a continual delight in God; the heart grows warm at the very thought of Jesus, the eye moistened with holy feeling, and the verity of the promise concerning “the latter rain” is proved.

So let nothing discourage you. If the soil is dry, keep cultivating it, for they say that in a dry time three harrowings of the corn is equal to a shower of rain. Fix the will on God alone. Love Him for His own sake, and He will prove Himself equal to all His words.