When Your Well Runs Dry

Psalm 31:9–14 ESV

Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am in distress; my eye is wasted from grief; my soul and my body also. For my life is spent with sorrow, and my years with sighing; my strength fails because of my iniquity, and my bones waste away. Because of all my adversaries I have become a reproach, especially to my neighbors, and an object of dread to my acquaintances; those who see me in the street flee from me. I have been forgotten like one who is dead; I have become like a broken vessel. For I hear the whispering of many— terror on every side!— as they scheme together against me, as they plot to take my life. But I trust in you, O Lord; I say, “You are my God.”

Have you ever felt like giving up?

You feel like this battle is just not worth fighting anymore?

You have been doing your best to live as a Christian in the midst of constant persecution.

You keep trying to rise up, but others just keep pulling you down.

You know you should love them, but what you feel can’t be described as love.

And you can’t help but ask yourself, “Where is God in all of this?”

When you are worn down, and you feel like giving up, does that mean that you have lost your faith?

When you feel those questions rising, and that doubt starts creeping up in the corner of your mind, does that mean you have failed?

The Bible is filled with people who struggled in dark times. How did they respond?

Did they lose their faith?

Did they make mistakes?

Did they rebel and turn from God?

I want to look at some of these people today, and see what we can learn from their journeys.

Abraham

Back in Genesis, when God called Abraham to follow him, He made a promise.

He promised to take Abraham and Sarah, and grow a nation out of this elderly, childless couple.

Of course, they had always wanted children anyway, but now they have this promise.

As time went on, and they continued to be childless, they must have begun feeling the pressure to fulfill what God told them.

Sarah gave her maid Hagar to Abraham as a concubine so that he could have a son through her.

Hagar did give Abraham a son, Ishmael, but this resulted in jealousy and disaster.

Abraham ultimately cast Hagar and Ishmael out.

God took care of them, but Ishmael was not the son of the promise.

Abraham and Sarah, in their desire to be obedient to God, took matters into their own hands, and in doing so, actually ended up disobeying.

Did they lose their faith in God?

Did they fail?

Esther

When Haman the Agagite convinced the king to annihilate all the Jews, Esther was terrified.

After all, she was also a Jew.

As far as she knew, only her Uncle Mordecai knew the truth.

He had told her to keep her nationality a secret.

But could she be certain nobody else knew?

Should she try to do something to help her people, or should she remain silent and hope to stay safe?

If she acted, she risked getting killed along with all the other Jews.

If she remained silent, she would have to witness all her fellow Jews, including her uncle, being murdered.

Plus, she would spend the rest of her days fearing being discovered as a Jew.

When she felt that fear and doubt, did that mean that she lost faith in God?

Job

Here is a man who had everything.

A great family.

Wealth.

Prestige.

Above it all, he was known for his devotion to God.

He literally lost it all.

In one day, he lost all his livestock and servants, and his children were killed.

Then Job himself became covered in sores from head to foot.

His wife and three best friends all condemned him, telling him he must have done something wrong.

Here Job is, devastated in every way imaginable, and the ones who should be comforting him are criticizing.

It’s bad enough to be criticized when you know you’ve done something wrong, but when it’s not your fault and they still are trying to make it your fault!

Job gets to the point where he wishes he was never born.

David

The writer of our opening verse.

David spent years running from King Saul, who was pursuing David out of simple jealousy.

David was forced to live among his enemies, when all he had ever been was devoted to God and to his king.

He saw his former comrades turn against him.

Later in life, his own son tried to overthrow him and seize the throne.

David was by no means perfect.

He struggled with lust.

He got caught up in the power of his kingship, thinking he could get away with doing what he wanted.

Lust led to adultery, which led to murder and a cover-up.

He was overly indulgent with his children.

His children also developed the idea that they could do whatever they wanted.

David spent a great portion of his life not knowing who he could trust.

He constantly felt attacked.

The Children of Israel in the Wilderness

Imagine: After centuries of being slaves in Egypt, God sends a deliverer and miraculously sends you on the way to the Promised Land, only to find that it is already occupied by scary people?

Because you are scared of these occupants, you decide not to go in, and God makes you wander the wilderness for 40 years!

Now, imagine being the children of the ones who chose not to go into the Promised Land.

You are stuck in the wilderness, not because of anything you have done, but because of your parents’ actions.

How frustrating.

Living your whole life in a tent, having to pick up every few days or weeks and move somewhere else.

Constantly being told about God’s promise, but so far, never seeing it fulfilled.

Longing to have a real home.

When the Well Runs Dry

All of these are examples of people who had known a time when they had nothing left in themselves.

I am sure each of them felt they had failed God, and that God was judging them.

In some cases, maybe God WAS judging, or else they were just dealing with the natural result of their choices and actions.

And in it all, their faith must have seemed low.

When we get tired, we feel disconnected.

From others

From God

From ourselves.

We lose the ability to feel anything other than tired, frustrated, and even bitter.

Sometimes we get to a point where we don’t feel anything at all.

We just exist.

And it is easy to feel like we have lost our faith.

That’s because we often treat faith like an emotion.

But while there is an emotional aspect to faith, faith is NOT an emotion.

It is an act of will.

There are any number of reasons why our well runs dry.

We keep pushing, and just get tired of the endless effort.

We are constantly under attack from outside sources.

Spiritual darkness.

Cruelty of others.

Ultimately, though, I believe that it is the result of us getting a bit lazy.

We are human, after all.

We get busy doing things, and we forget to depend on the Lord to give us the strength.

I am writing sermons, planning the worship music, trying to maintain contact with our church members, keeping up with the church finances.

At the same time, I am trying to be a husband and father.

I am a custodian 40 hours a week.

I am paying bills.

I am trying to get the last of our stuff shipped back from Croatia.

And as I reflect on this, I realize that I get worn down because I am doing this out of my own strength.

Does that mean that I don’t have faith? No.

I just don’t always remember to act on that faith.

Like Abraham, I try to help bring God’s promises into fulfillment.

I try to make things happen, instead of just being obedient and letting God handle the rest.

Like Esther, I am tempted to figure out how to handle the situation.

When others come against me, I get scared or angry.

I want to react by putting them in their place.

I want to fix things to make it better for me.

Let’s institute a new policy.

Let’s report them for their actions.

Let’s just get out of here and start over somewhere else.

Like Job, I question what I did wrong that God should be judging me.

Why are you doing this to me, God?

Like David, I sometimes feel that there is nobody who is there fore me. Everyone seems out to get me.

And like the Israelites, I feel like I don’t belong anywhere and that God’s promise is never going to come.

That’s how I FEEL.

And when I act on those feelings, I keep trying to do more and more out of my own strength.

It’s a vicious cycle.

And while I might be praying all the while for God to give me strength, I still am doing it on my own, my way.

God wants to empower me, but the power comes from doing things His way.

When someone comes against me, I want God to fix them.

Or maybe I ask God to help me be civil toward them.

But I should be asking God to give me a genuine LOVE for them.

A love in spite of their awful behavior.

I need to be praying that the Holy Spirit act through me to reach those around me.

Help my testimony to be strong, my witness clear.

All these people I mentioned struggled, but they kept serving God.

That’s what faith is.

It’s trusting, in spite of how you feel.

Just the fact that you’re here today means that you haven’t lost faith.

You are looking for renewed hope.

You are looking for renewed strength.

You are looking for comfort.

I want you to know today, God DOES love you.

He is your hope

Your strength

Your comfort.

You just need to get your eyes off your problems and onto Him.

And I know that sounds easier said than done.

But I want you to consider something.

They say that the definition of insanity is to continue doing something the same way while expecting different results.

You have been going about your struggle the same way for awhile now. You have been trying to figure it out and make a strategy for dealing with it.

It hasn’t worked.

Isn’t it time to say, “God, I just give this to you.”

You don’t have to feel like a failure just because you are hurting.

Even if you have made mistakes, acting out of your flesh rather than through the Spirit, God won’t turn his back on you.

He loves you, and he is ready to work on your behalf.

You just need to give him room to do his thing.

John 7:38 ESV

Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ ”

Jesus has promised that His Spirit will flow out of you like a river.

Not a pool, which is limited and stagnant.

A river, which is moving and endless, bringing constant refreshing.

We often pray that we will be a vessel of God’s spirit.

But we thing of ourselves as jars, when God wants us to be fountains.

We are meant to be tributaries of His river.

When we learn to do that, our spirits will find a source of refreshing, even if our bodies get tired.

If you are tired today, and you feel like you’re losing your faith, or that you’ve lost it, don't’ feel condemned.

God is not angry with you.

He wants to bring healing and rest into you.

He wants to restore you.

Faith is an act of will. Will you act right now and come forward so God can meet you and restore you?

I would like our prayer team to come up right now.