Many of us go through seasons of spiritual dryness. Kevin examined various potential causes of our spiritual dryness: (1) depression; (2) boredom with a form of prayer; (3) our sins; (4) difficulties of life; and (5) the dark night of the soul.

Kevin focused on what St. John of the Cross called the dark night of the soul. Our spiritual dryness could be a calling from God into the desert.

Why might God call us into the dark night of the soul?

(1) It could be that he wants to mature us through it. The dark night of the soul actually seeks to bring us closer to God. As we mature in Christ, we sometimes think that God is only in the light--when things are going well, when we feel blessed to be alive, and when our family and job are going well. But, the dark night of the soul actually teaches us that God is even in the darkness of our lives. Even when we don’t feel him, he is there. Even when we are bored with him, he is there. Even when we feel numb, he continues to love us. It actually helps us develop our faith in Jesus instead of faith in our circumstances. He is taking away a blessing to help us grow more dependent on him. It’s not because he loves us any less; it is because he loves us more than we can imagine.

(2) It could be to develop our hunger for God. Many people who have experienced this say that the dark night of the soul is actually an opportunity to develop spiritual hunger and purge our hearts of things that used to satisfy us. We used to rely on God, but as we grew in character, we started to rely on our own goodness, and that got boring. Something was off. The dark night helps us see that something is off and makes us hunger for God.

(3) It could be that our pain in the dark nights can be redemptive. Jesus himself had to experience the agony of the absence of God: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" His suffering redeemed us. Like him, we could suffer redemptively by clinging to God in the midst of darkness.