Stuck: What to Do When Your Relationship With God Is in a Rut

The alarm clock rings early, and the snooze button tempts you. But you do what you made a commitment to do and drag yourself out of bed. You make something warm to drink and hunker down in your favorite chair, Bible and journal nearby. You pray, but somehow the words feel empty and redundant. You read, but nothing seems interesting, let alone applicable. You write, or try to, but no prayers or revelations or laments come to mind. You list a few things to be grateful for—that’s always good, right?–and move on with your day. 

On to the kids, the to-do list, the job, the outreach, the relationships in need of attention. The day calls for a lot of love, a lot of heart, and you were really hoping God would have shown up a bit more clearly during your quiet time, giving you some kernel of inspiration or peace to carry with you. But instead, you almost feel more weary and dry after your time with Him. What’s wrong with me? you wonder. You chide yourself for not putting enough effort into these times. And, even deeper, the unspoken questions threaten: Does God even care about me? Is following Jesus worth the extra effort? Why do I bother at all? 

If this scenario resonates with you, I have two things to say in response:

1. You might be in a spiritual winter. Lean into it. There is incredible growth happening beneath the surface in this season of darkness and silence.
2. If what you’re doing to meet with God isn’t nourishing your soul, maybe you’re on the brink of discovering your unique God-connection design. Trying a few new ways to be with Jesus can make a tremendous difference.

RELATIONSHIP OVER DISCIPLINE

I love my husband. I really do. But if we were to make a plan to sit down with each other and talk for an hour every morning, I guarantee it would start to feel bland, even tedious after a while if we didn’t have other fun or interesting ways to connect outside of that.

Our strongest earthly relationships have elements of heartfelt sharing, genuine affirmation, shared enjoyment of activities, challenging conversations, and plentiful laughter and joy.

I’m not sure why, but Christians tend to view our relationship with God differently from our human relationships. We try to sell each other on these one-size-fits-all devotional routines, and we think that if we’re checking the boxes of Bible study, prayer, worship, and fellowship, we’re doing pretty darn good in our walk with Christ. Bonus points if we also attend a small group or have an accountability partner.

Now, obviously, none of that is wrong. They’re excellent foundational practices for life with Christ, but when exercised outside of a dynamic love relationship with him, they can quickly feel robotic. In other words, it’s easy to get stuck in a spiritual rut. Here’s what Gary Thomas has to say about that in Sacred Pathways:

“If you are in a spiritual malaise, it may be that you need a change in your spiritual diet. If you just can’t seem to leave that one particular sin, you may find that the answer is simple: You don’t know how to be nourished 
according to the way God made you so you’re seeking spiritual ‘junk food,’ … Finding fulfillment in God is the most 
powerful antidote to any sin.”

It’s not just that we’re in danger of feeling dry and bored with God, it’s that we’re in danger of filling the spiritual emptiness with the wrong things and ending up trapped in sinful patterns.

So, if you’ve come here today feeling stuck, weary, or ensnared by sin, maybe it’s time to check how you’ve been feeding your soul through connection with Jesus.

SPICING UP YOUR GOD TIME

Each one of us is wired to give and receive love in a specific way. That much is obvious if you’ve ever had a friend who absolutely loved to give you gifts even though you’ve insisted you don’t need more clutter, or if you’ve ever wanted to hug and hold everyone near and dear to you but received a stiff arm from one or two loved ones. I think it’s more than reasonable to assume that we can apply the “love languages” principles to our connection with God, too.

Consider how you enjoy offering love in your human relationships, and try worshiping God in that way— perhaps with a gift, a love note, a hands-on service project, or a sunset stroll. 

Now, think about how you best receive love. Experiment with finding God’s heart anew by going for a hike, reading liturgy, diving into an excellent sermon series, taking a silent retreat, doing street evangelism, imagining yourself in a Bible story, attending an impassioned worship event, or setting up a specific devotional space filled with imagery, candles, and a fresh worship playlist.

Beauty hunting is one of my favorite ways to find God’s little gifts of love for me.

Yes, keep the Bible reading, but shake up when, where, and how you do it. Keep the prayer, but consider setting the list of requests aside and just being still to listen for a while. Keep the worship, but remember that God is glorified in much more than just our words and our songs.

As in any relationship, the familiar interactions bring comfort, but shared new experiences stir excitement and create a depth of knowing that can’t be had by visiting the same coffee shop and having the same conversation every day. Try something new with Jesus and see if it makes your soul come alive.

WHEN NOTHING HELPS

I’ve spent the last few months writing into the ideas of the spiritual journey and ways to connect with God because I think these concepts are key to our growth in Christ. But also, I see a growing frustration with the church, an outright movement away from Christianity as a culture, and a lot of weariness and doubt among believers. There’s a crisis of faith going on.

If you find yourself in that crisis of faith, tempted to deconstruct all that you’ve built your life upon, what I’ve suggested above might not be of help. Chances are, something deeper in your heart needs to be addressed. I want to invite you—push you even—to do some soul searching and lay it all bare before God. 

Also, please find a trusted friend to walk beside you.

Pastor Joshua Ryan Butler suggests that there are four common causes underlying the questions and push-back he often hears to following God: church hurt, poor teaching, desire to sin, and street cred (in other words, just wanting to fit in—belonging is an incredible motivator, one the church can use for good!). These aren’t places we can navigate easily on our own.

THE JOY BEFORE US

So, try a new way to experience Jesus’ love, but also make sure you’re doing the work of being real with yourself and God. And don’t try to do it all alone.

Joy follows healing. Healing follows exposure. Exposure follows searching. Searching follows pain. Pain follows a wound.

Yes, you can go there, all the way back to the wounds and the fear and the hidden sin. It’s hard work, scary at times even. But remember Jesus, and remember the joy. It’s interwoven with suffering, with humility, with perseverance. And it is already yours in Christ, both for eternity and also in the everyday moments of knowing Him now. 

Therefore, since we also have such a large cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every hindrance and the sin that so easily ensnares us. Let us run with endurance the race that lies before us, keeping our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. For the joy that lay before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him who endured such hostility from sinners against himself, so that you won’t grow weary and give up.

Hebrews 12:1-3

Let’s chase the joy.