Recently, I’ve been in a spiritual slump. A spiritual
desert. Or pick another metaphor to describe what it feels like when God seems
far away.

Usually, I know why I’m in a place like this. Either I’m
wrestling with a big theological question, or I just haven’t had time to talk
with God about anything, or something difficult has happened and I’m upset.
This time around, though, it’s none of the above.

It’s summertime. I sit on a porch in the morning with some time to myself, and I can glimpse the water
of the Long Island Sound. I bring my Bible and journal and cup of tea. It should be ideal for connecting with God. But I simply go
through the motions of praying and reading Scripture. I listen, but I don’t
hear anything. I speak or write, and they feel like empty words.

And then I remember Psalm 63, a psalm that has become my
instruction manual for times like these. It begins with permission to declare
the desert:

O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you;

my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you,

in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

It begins with a statement of the present reality. But then
it moves to a memory:

I have seen you in the
sanctuary ?      

and beheld your power
and your glory.

The Psalmist remembers who God has been, the times that were
rich and vibrant and emotionally satisfying. And once he remembers who God is,
even if he can’t feel God now, the Psalmist can move forward and praise:

Because your love is
better than life, ?      

my lips will glorify
you.

I don’t think anything changed emotionally. I don’t think he
had a vision of God or all his problems were worked out in an instant. But that
memory of who God has been and what God has done was enough to move him
forward.

So here I go, trudging through a dry and weary land, where
there is no water, remembering that this God I love has always been the one to
quench my thirst.