In 1937, Irish missionary Amy Carmichael wrote about meeting with God in seasons of suffering in her book Windows:

“Bare heights of loneliness, deep valleys of depression, a wilderness whose burning winds sweep over glowing sand, what are they to Him? Even there He can refresh us; even there He can renew us.”¹

Have you ever found yourself in a wilderness season? A season of life when your faith feels dry, and God feels absent? When you know he’s there, and you desperately need him, but all you can manage is to groan in God’s direction?

Chronic illness has been the cause of my most recent wilderness season, but there are many other causes. Any trial that brings grief, discouragement, anxiety, or disillusionment can kick off a wilderness season in life. We all walk through seasons that feel dark and endless. Often during these times, the idea of sitting down to have our daily quiet time with the Lord can be more than our fragile bodies and minds can take. We feel empty, with nothing to offer the Lord in the way of personal devotion and worship.

What God has taught me during my battle with chronic illness is that not having the ability to uphold my regular quiet time routine doesn’t mean I can’t meet with God in the wilderness. God does not require me to possess perfect health (physical or mental) in order to meet with him daily. Despite how desperate and empty my wilderness season may feel, God can refresh and renew me even there. While spending time in the wilderness of suffering may keep me from meeting with God the way I’m accustomed to, it doesn’t mean that God’s not present or that he’s inaccessible. But I may have to get creative about how I reach out to him when my season of suffering doesn’t support my usual quiet time routine.

Perhaps this is a good time to note that “help me” is a complete prayer and demonstrates an amount of faith far larger than those two small words imply. This broken world causes us to groan deeply and desperately. But God hears every groan. The Holy Spirit interprets those groans for our benefit when we are incapable of doing so (Romans 8:26). There will be seasons of life when all we can do is groan in God’s direction. This isn’t an act of defeat; it’s an act of defiant faith in the face of suffering.

Learning to Pivot

It’s okay to permit ourselves to pivot from our regular quiet time routines to meet with God in a way that is gentler on our hearts and minds during seasons of suffering. We can still meet with God, pour out our hearts to him, and receive encouragement and strength from his Word in ways that don’t require long sessions of journaling, Bible reading, and prayer.

During this long season of chronic illness, I’ve come up with a list of low-energy, gentle, quiet-time activities I can still do on my hardest days. Each day, I choose from this list based on what my body and mind can handle:

• Groan in God’s direction—cry, wail, sigh, or even cry out in frustration
• Pray a short but earnest prayer
• Listen to Scripture music
• Listen to a gospel-centered podcast
• Listen to a Psalm on an audio Bible
• Journal my feelings as a prayer, even just a few words
• Read and pray through a short Psalm
• Read a brief devotion from a devotional book
• Ask a friend or family member to read Scripture or pray over me

Sometimes I pair these devotional pursuits with other activities, such as crocheting, showering, or driving to a doctor’s appointment. On difficult days, it often feels less intimidating to meet with God outside the setting of a structured quiet time routine. But every day, I strive to do at least one thing from this list, even if it’s short. It’s my desperate but sincere attempt to seek the face of God in the wilderness of suffering.

Everything We Have

God has never failed to refresh and renew me in my most desperate moments—in those small offerings of devotion. He blesses every attempt I make to seek his face, no matter how small. I give him everything I have, which on many days isn’t much, and by his grace, he multiplies it into blessings I am only now beginning to understand.

During this season, I am often reminded of the story of the poor widow from Mark 12:

And he [Jesus] sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny. And he called his disciples to him and said to them, “Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on” (Mark 12:41-44).

Sometimes, in a wilderness season, giving out of our poverty feels insufficient. But the story of the poor widow teaches us that an impoverished cry for help, offered to God in faith, is worth more than an ‘Instagram-worthy’ quiet time offered from a place of abundance. We give what we have, trusting that God will use every meager offering for our good and his glory.

Perhaps you are walking through a wilderness season right now as you read this. Or perhaps you are in a season of abundance—with green pastures and still waters (Psalm 23:2). Both are seasons we must travel through to grow in Christlikeness this side of heaven. Whether you find yourself in the wilderness of suffering today or five years from now, it’s wise for us to plan how we will continue to meet with God in His Word and prayer when life does not unfold as we expect.

The wilderness is lonely, exhausting, and dry. But as Amy Carmichael reminds us: “Even there He can refresh us; even there He can renew us.” And this is the hope that carries us through.

Today’s post comes from Chapter 5 of my new book, The Quiet Time Workbook. If you’d like the full set of personal reflection exercises and guided journal pages that accompany each chapter in the workbook, you can grab it from my Shop here.

Footnotes:

1. Amy Carmichael, Windows (London: SPCK, 1937), 174, https://archive.org/details/windows_202012.