in our Christian journey with God many times we go through dry seasons
wilderness seasons and a lot of times when people go through these seasons
they get very discouraged and they don't know what to do and I want to share with
you a few practical tips and what to do when you hit a dry season number one
everybody goes through a dry season through a wilderness but what you do in
that dry season determines how long you're gonna be in it you can't avoid it
but how you respond in your wilderness determines how long it will go on Israel
was expected to make a journey for 14 days once they came out of Egypt but it
lasted 40 years because of their attitude Jesus went through wilderness
and his journey lasted only 40 days because Israel complained Jesus he
commanded or he proclaimed the Word of God and so what you do in your
wilderness determines how long it will last no matter how deep you are with God
you can't avoid wilderness but what you do in your wilderness determines how
long it will last number two the Holy Spirit will lead you to a
wilderness but only the Holy Scriptures will get you out of the wilderness the
Bible says that Jesus was led by the spirit into wilderness sometimes you
will be led by God's Spirit to do something
that will land you in a dry season of your life you feel disconnected you feel
confused you feel like it's dead here it's you're stuck there and then you try
to rely on the Holy Spirit during that time and you will not feel like you're
connected to him so what I tell people is in your wilderness you most likely
are not going to feel the Holy Spirit therefore you must feast on the Holy
Scriptures rely less on your feelings and more on facts rely less
and what you are feeling and more on what you know Paul says I know that my
Redeemer excuse me Job says I know my redeemer lives Paul says I know whom I
believe when you're going through a hard time you can't rely on what you feel you
rely on what you know number three when you're going through a wilderness time
remember God's silence is not God's absence
what makes wilderness most difficult is God's silence a lot of times in the
wilderness God is silent you don't feel his presence and you
don't hear his voice but God's silence is not God's absence you know when I was
in school during the test the teacher was always silent but it didn't mean
mean that the teacher was gone and so what I had to do during
the test is instead of raising my head I said hey help me out come on teacher
speak to me I had to kind of lower my head and I had to remember everything
that the teacher told me before she or he stopped speaking so when you stopped
hearing God's voice in the wilderness remember what he said before you came
into this season of your life remember his promises remember his dreams reflect
and what he's done before it will help you to get out of this season and when
you come out from the season of wilderness you will feel his presence
again and you will hear his voice again number four if you're going through hell
keep going you know I think it's one of the Churchill or somebody that said that
if you're going through hell keep going but Bible says this is that if you're
walking through the valley of the shadow of death I fear no evil but I want you
to notice it says walking through that means there's this principle of
sometimes you just gotta keep on going keep on going Bible says that not to
look back Paul says i forget things behind me and i look forward to the
things that are in front of me and the angels told Lot and his family they said
run for your life don't look back and then there's this
statement that ministers to me a lot do not stay in the plane plane is plateau
it's things that are the same and the angels told lot do not stay there
meanings don't build an apartment there don't build your doctrine there don't
stay there walk through that quickly into the mountains meaning into your
experiences with God and sometimes the way you go
through the wilderness is you just go through it one day at a time keep going
at it and as you do that you will see that you will come out of it
number five God doesn't just reward us when we find him but he rewards us when
we seek Him that is such an encouraging thought the Bible says in Hebrews
chapter 11 verse 6 then without faith it's impossible to please God he who
comes to God must believe that he is and he's the reward watch this
of those that seek Him God rewards not only those who find him but those who
seek Him the Bible says in Matthew chapter 5 is the blessed are those who
hunger and thirst for righteousness in order to hunger for something you gotta
have absence or lack of it meaning God says I'll bless you for wanting to be
righteous I'll bless you for seeking me it says of David that he was a man after
God's heart it didn't say he had God's heart
we know he made a lot of mistakes and so in the wilderness a lot of times you
don't find what you were looking for and you feel discouraged but I want to
encourage you to let you know the very act of pursuing it and seeking it God
says I'll bless you for it number 6 when you're in the wilderness typically
you're suffering you're hurting remember don't use suffering as an excuse not to
serve the first healing that happened in the Bible is when God asked Abraham to
pray for the barren women while his own wife was barren
Joseph was expected by God to translate dreams of other people while his own
dream was on hold Job was praying for his friends when his own life was falling
apart Jesus He healed a man while he was being arrested and he led another man to
salvation on the cross in the middle of his pain a lot of people they used their
pain as an excuse not to serve they used their pain as excuse not to help other
people but in reality sometimes the best way and the quickest way to get out of
your wilderness is to stop wallowing in your self-pity pick up a towel find
somebody who's hurting more than you and help them life is like tennis those who
serve well seldomly lose number seven the best
thing you can do on your worst day sometimes is take a nap yeah you heard
me right Jesus in the storm took a nap woke up commanded the storm disciples
were like all working themselves to death and being so anxious when Elijah
was suicidal and didn't want to live angel came to him and gave him a good
meal and told him to go to sleep yes it wasn't spiritual they didn't tell him to
pray and fast he told them to get some good sleep and to eat because a lot of
times our emotions are affected by a physical being what I like to do and I
encourage you is schedule your pleasures meaning things that replenish
you restore you schedule them because nobody's gonna schedule them for you
nobody's gonna give those things to you you gotta take him it says of Mary that
she has chosen the good part and it will never be taken from her Martha was full
of anxiety because she was waiting for somebody to make her restful but you got
to schedule your rest you got to schedule your pleasure
schedule your refreshing times learn to take care of your physical body learn to
exercise learn to eat well and honestly learn to sleep well sometimes you got to
cut off the social media for a little bit don't look at social media before
you go to sleep so you can get a good night's sleep because you have no idea
how much that affects your emotions and how your emotions affect your spiritual
life number eight if you miss your devotions you have not missed your
devotion we must understand a lot of times people struggle in their
relationship with God because of this they skip in on their devotional life
for a little bit and they lose a track of their Bible reading and they feel
like oh I feel so guilty but I want to tell you something God wants you to
understand that devotion is your life given to God devotions is your time
spent with God and if you miss on your devotions I don't encourage that but you
shouldn't feel guilty you should feel like you miss God you know if you don't
see a friend for a long time you don't feel guilty you missed them because God
wants a relationship not a set of rules for us to obey devotion is my life given
to God devotions is my time spend with him number nine in your
wilderness do not make permanent decisions based on temporary feelings
the problem happens with wilderness is many people decide permanently about
their life when they're when they're not doing good never make a decision when
you're not feeling well never make a decision about your job never make a
decision about your church your ministry about your relationships the wilderness
is not a time to make decisions wilderness is a time to make progress
wilderness is a time to to push forward don't make decisions because you can
curse your future based on a temporary feeling there was one woman she was
giving birth to a son and she called her Ichabod meaning the glory of God the
departed and she labeled this guy's full identity and whole life based on one
incident because at the time that she was giving birth to her son she was in
pain and the Ark of God was captured the crazy part is this is that not long
after David became a king the Ark of God came back but this poor boy lived all
his life with the name Ichabod don't make permanent decision based on painful
situations because those situations are not gonna last but those decisions will
number 10 and what to do when you are in the wilderness is developed patience and
stamina you have to understand one thing is that say Satan is compared to a lion
and one thing that Lions have is they have a small heart and lions don't have
a stamina unlike other animals Lions don't have they can't run for very long
and Satan that's his characteristic he wants to build within Christians an
impatient spirit I remember when I started the youth ministry and one time
I hit a very dry dry season I came to my pastor and I said pastor I am
discouraged I want to give up I was like seventeen years of age and he looked at
me he said Vlad you know the difference between a young horse and an
old horse and I said well I don't know much about horses he's a young horse
starts really fast beats all the horses at first and an old horse starts slow
but an old horse always beats a young horse because he has a stamina he looked
at me and he says you are a young horse he says you ran your first lap and
you're dying you're tired you're giving up
he says God ministry is not a sprint it's a marathon and so if you want one
thing that you have to learn is the Holy Spirit will develop within you
self-control and spirit of patience and patience is waiting upon God with a good
attitude and so there is no way patience can be developed without the opportunity
to be patient and when God presents the opportunity to be patient we typically
pray out of it we say Lord take this away take this away but how is patient
going to be developed if you're not gonna have opportunities to be patient
so I just want to encourage you if you're going through a very dry season
of your life right now hang in there help is on the way God hasn't forsaken
you God hasn't abandoned you you haven't done something that God can forgive hang
in there because God is coming you will come out of this wilderness like Jesus
did and you will enter into a new season with the new glory with a new level of
anointing with the new level of Revelation with God's blessing will rest
upon your life I just pray for you right now in Jesus name if you're going
through a wilderness I'm just sending God's grace your way I'm sending let
God's angels strengthen you let God's grace support you let your mouth not
become a source of complaining but a source of proclaiming God's promises
hang in there help is on the way