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Frank Viola | Beyond Evangelical
Official Blog of Author & Speaker Frank Viola. Digging below the surface and moving beyond the shallows in today's Christianity.
In Praise of Dry Spells
Whatever Happened to Perseverance?
I’m reading your “Blog/Post” because one of my spiritual sisters just told me I was in a “growth spell.” My baby sister was just murdered by a cop after giving her life to God. While I know the incident transpired through a poor decision she made, I have been informed this by God already and confirmed through a messenger… I’m still in a state where I feel like I’ve been robbed of my worship and my praise. Your article is ministering to me to some extent, but this “spell” is going to help make me is so hard to embrace giving the circumstances.
You mention that church splits often happen during dry spells. Is this always bad? Can’t splits be good?
A split is division. Multiplication / transmigration is different.
Amen. Thank you Frank for this post.
In regards to Sir Thomas More and “a man for all seasons”. I very highly recommend the DVD of Charlton Heston’s sincere and compelling version from 1988. It’s a powerful and overlooked gem about adhering and standing for God’s principles.
Quite an interesting post! On both the individual and the corporate level, I think, dry spells should set alarm bells ringing in our heads – is something going wrong here that I could do something about? (Am I so interested in something else that I’m forgetting about God for instance? Do we like singing so much that we forget to ask God what he would like?). If so, you know what to do to escape. If not, you can ask God to help you out – that’s happened for me a couple of times.
But maybe that’s just the fixable dry spell that was mentioned in the post. I’ve never encountered an unfixable one – I don’t even really know if I believe it exists?
I guess it’s kind of like being married. Things can get normal and routine, and then perhaps boring or frustrating – but there’s never nothing you can do about beyond simply enduring.
I enjoyed this text: treating God with the soul of man involves stations, cross and brokenness.
Wow!!! Your insight on “dry spells” is so on time for me personally and spiritually…I realize that I have been “dry” for a very long time, going through the motions of life and ministry in many respects…Yet, in all the Bible examples, God would bring streams of water in the desert (Isaiah 35)…I want to know what the Lord is saying to me and to our church in this season as we have incurred so much loss numerically and financially, but we continue to press on…I feel encouraged to see it through to the end…Thanks so much Frank…God bless!!
“@HenriNouwen: To refuse suffering is to refuse personal growth.”
Amen! Thank you for sharing this, Frank. I have been through several dry spells since Christ was birthed in me. Currently our body seems to be in one. My heart is set to persevere towards Christ being formed in myself and the people around me. All we can do in a dry spell is turn our thirsty hearts towards Him and wait. And wait I shall!
Frank, you once wrote about a friend of yours who was going through the “dark night”. I was wondering if you could tell how he got over it, if he did and if he is ok now. Have you ever experienced it?
The person is still going through it. I talk about the experience in “Revise Us Again.”
Sometimes I hear God’s voice loudly. I sense his presence and his love. Other times, I don’t. It’s during these times I have to walk by faith, remembering what God has done in the other seasons of my life. That’s one of the reasons we need spiritual communities. Even when we forget what God has done, these communities will remind us about what’s true.
If it wasn’t for dry spells we wouldn’t learn many things, mainly patience and perseverance. It is in those frustrating times that we need to come and get a taste of the Living Water. Like you said, He helps us endure and succeed.
This is my interpretation of dry spells:
Dry spells are pretty common in the Bible to many leading characters: Moses, Elijah, David, Daniel, Jonah, Job, Ezekiel, Paul, Jesus, Jesus’ disciples. I pretty much figure the prophets of old went through more than their share of dry spells. Can you imagine the enormous responsibility with little or no support? Kind of like our modern day pastors.
If we’re interested in being a disciple and not just a believer, God will make sure we become a disciple and dry spells will all be part of that journey.
I’ve been through dry spells. Here are some of the valuable things dry spells in my life have done for me: built character, helped me to get focused, narrowed my interests, increased my dependency on God and decreased my ability to do “His” work on my own steam. Dry spells take the breath out of us and leave us helpless. Only then can God, through us, do His amazing work of ministry.
Frank, your advice to “batten down the hatches, hunker down, and walk through it”, is about the best advice I’ve heard from anyone. Thanks for leading me into my quiet time today. It was delightful.
All I can say is…thanks Frank. Your insights are helpful as I plug away through my own dry spell…excited about what God is doing and is going to do.
Really appreciated this blog, Frank. Growing up in the charismatic renewals of Toronto and Brownsville, etc., it took me a long time to come to see that dry spells, or silence even, could be authored by God. By now I think I have solidly landed on the side of God sometimes (or often times) being the dry spell’s “Causer.” (;
I was wondering if you could offer some of the passages of scripture that guided you toward this view. I would love to hear more!
Even in our mountian-top times, we need to constantly be preparing ourselves for these dry spells, because they are inevitable.
I’ve been walking through my own version of the West Texas/Oklahoma dust bowl of the 1930’s. And yes, like the Okies, I ended up in Southern California. Now, I’m praying for rain.
Thanks Frank for the prophetic insight.
I just related this topic to someone five minutes ago. You said it much better. Passing this on.
The only thing I can say for now is that I’m into one of those. Your advice to: “Batten down the hatches, hunker down, and walk through it”, is the best possibility for survival. The Lord is with us, in spite of it.
I’ve been there and I can definitely relate to the emotions. But I can also relate to the learning. Good stuff, Frankie V. It is what it is. Whatayagonnado?
Forgetabouuuutit . . .
LOL!
Dry spells happen. And when I was a baby Christian and experienced my first one- I got horrible advice about it. And every time I try to talk about dry spells to people I trust- they always turn it back on me. I have learned to trust God through the dry and wet times, but not from any help that my spiritual leaders have given me. Sad, but true.
Now I try to help other Christians realize that they will have a dry spell- and that it is not our job to “fix” it. We need only trust our Lord through it.
God’s timing is amazing. Perseverance, my friend, perseverance. ..We have to remember that whether we can see Him through the darkness or not, He is there. Can we still love Him when the blessings seem to stop? What we learn through these dark times is perhaps the greatest blessing of all. I’m constantly amazed by how with perseverance eventually the pieces begin to find their places. God is so cool.
I quite agree with you Frank. I have learnt much through observing the seasons and in some ways conforming to them – it does help when I live in rural locations. Seasons have been important to me, particularly winter and I wrote a poem on the Winter of the Soul, you can see it on my blog. I find winter a good time to wait and see, to let things die that need to die and to await the promise of spring.
“Cosmic Sugar Daddy”
Never heard it stated better, and it gave me a bit of a chuckle this morning. Thanks!
I think dry spells are also a good time for getting back to basics. Not that we should have ever left the basics, but for me, a dry spell is a good time to refocus on “Jesus Christ and him crucified.”
Amen!
Amen!
Just what I needed, you addressed things I have been pondering for the past few weeks. Thanks a lot Frank.
Very helpful, Frank. Thanks.