Christian Holiness Journal

Our imitation of God in this life — that is, our willed imitation as distinct from any of the likenesses which He has impressed upon our natures or states — must be an imitation of God incarnate: our model is the Jesus, not only of Calvary, but of the workshop, the roads, the crowds, the clamorous demands and surly oppositions, the lack of all peace and privacy, the interruptions. For this, so strangely unlike anything we can attribute to the Divine life in itself, is apparently not only like, but is, the Divine life operating under human conditions.

– C.S. LEWIS, The Four Loves (HARCOURT TRADE: 1971; ORIG. 1960), P. 6.

Spiritual drought can be disheartening. I wonder, though, how often such dry spells are of our own making? Sometimes we are, without a doubt, to blame for our own spiritual “climate change.” 

R. C. Sproul pinpoints one reason that many Christians nearly die of thirst, spiritually speaking:

“No amount of Christian activity compensates for an authentic relationship with Jesus Christ. There is nothing in this universe you need more desperately than Christ.” 
God confirms this in Hebrews 3:7-11, where the author quotes the Holy Spirit…

Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says,

 “Today, if you hear his voice,

do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers tested me by trial and saw my works for forty years.

“I was angry with this generation, and I said, ‘They always go astray in their heart, and they do not know my ways.’ As I swore in my anger, ‘⌊They will never enter⌋ into my rest.'”
Please, God, this generation have all gone astray. Do not allow Your anger to burn against us. We need Your rest. Our souls cry out for your living waters. Take our cup. We lift it up. Please make us whole. 

“Sometimes prayer is not enough. God requires action. Think of the account of the Good Samaritan. A certain man had been robbed, beaten, and left for dead. Before the Samaritan finds him and rescues him, Christ tells us that two religious leaders pass by. One is a priest and the other is an officiant in the Temple. It is not unreasonable to think that both say a prayer for the victim. Both, though, avoid the man, naked, beaten, possibly dying.”
– Steve Hager, from My Brother’s Keeper: a study of The Golden Rule for Christian small business owners.