Bobby Bosler: Welcome to Thee Generation Podcast. I’m Bobby Bosler, speaking to you today, as always, from Fairmont, West Virginia.

The weather is warming up here quite a bit, and I think I said that last time. I am thrilled to address you again and share some things the Lord is doing in my heart and life. We have moved into a different phase of life and ministry, and we are not traveling or preaching to large crowds of lost teenagers as much anymore.

But the pursuit of total surrender to God and total dependence on His power works in any phase of life and any type of ministry. It is the way God intends for us to live.

Sometimes we have the image that somebody who is totally surrendered will have everything going right and will always be encouraged, without moments of darkness or emptiness. As I speak on this podcast, I try to let my hair down a little bit. Some of the most helpful messages and conversations I have had came when people were real with me, when they took off the mask of professional ministry or Christianity and were simply honest.

So forgive me for being transparent here. I have found this to be true many times in my Christian experience: you can be serving God and feeling empty. You can be active in ministry, surrendering to Him, depending upon Him, and seeing God do encouraging things, yet still get up in the morning, open your Bible, and feel silence and emptiness.

Honestly, when I woke up this morning, that is how I felt.

I am recording this on Sunday, May 17. I had just spent two solid days in intensive sermon preparation. Since becoming pastor here at Fellowship Baptist Church, sermon preparation has been relentless—four sermons every week.

I am not complaining; it has been some of the most rewarding and wonderful work I have ever done, and God has taught me so much. But sometimes when you pour yourself out, you look inside and feel empty.

I felt like a wrung-out rag. I felt dry and numb. As I read my Bible, things seemed flat.

I was asking the Lord to meet with me, to quicken my spirit so that I could see life in the words of Scripture, and to grip my soul with the truth I needed for the day. I was only a couple of hours away from standing in the pulpit and preaching to my people, but I felt dry and empty. It seemed as though there were a screen between me and God, and I did not like it.

As I talked to the Lord and prayed, I was reminded of several promises. God said He would never leave me or forsake me. Jesus promised, “I will be with you always, even to the end of the world.”

I was reminded that I could not flee from God’s presence, and I believed those promises. Yet my feelings did not change. The emptiness continued.

Have you ever been there, young person? If you have not, you have not been around this very long. I have been there many times.

Any preacher or minister who says he has never experienced it is lying to you. We all have times of emptiness, numbness, or silence, no matter how closely we walk with God or how spiritual we might be.

Sometimes, if we are not careful, we let those short seasons of silence and numbness discourage us. Can I say this? God lets you feel numb, not so that you will become discouraged or doubt that He is there, but many times because He is trying to draw you to Himself.

God can get our attention in all kinds of ways. Sometimes He spanks us through hard moments and circumstances that come from the hand of a Father who recognizes that His son or daughter needs correction.

But sometimes, even when we are doing what we are supposed to be doing, where we are supposed to be doing it, and in the power in which we are supposed to be doing it, we suddenly—or over a short period of time—feel dry. What is God doing? Is He being mean?

Is He playing hide-and-seek? No. God is trying to get your attention, and He is trying to teach you how to trust Him.

This morning I reminded myself that God had counted me faithful. He was the One who put me in the ministry. I thanked God for giving me grace to know and grace to do.

Even as I typed those words into my Day One journal app, I was still empty. But when God began meeting the need of my soul—when emptiness began turning into life and thirst into a cool draught of water—it was when I started worshiping God in my heart.

I will read to you exactly what I said: “Lord, I worship You. You are the worthy One; I am not.

You are the faithful One; I am not. You are the righteous One; I am not.”

Then the Lord put a psalm on my heart. I do not know whether this is how it always works; I only know how God spelled it out for me.

When I started praising Him and worshiping Him, giving the honor due His name instead of focusing on my numbness, dryness, or silence, God brought my heart to Psalm 42: “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God.”

As I pored over those words, it was as if God was saying, “See this dryness and emptiness? This is not new. This is what David was experiencing when the Spirit of God inspired him to write these words that have encouraged so many people over the millennia.”

Dryness is not unusual. David was going to the right Person.

He was saying, “God, just like a deer pants for water, my soul is longing for You. I am thirsty for You.”

I identified with the psalmist’s thirst and that feeling in my heart. We could go through the whole psalm, but I will let you do that. I believe there are thirsty people listening to this—people who are dry, who have been in a season of emptiness and silence, and who do not know what to make of it.

You are discouraged, and you do not want to tell anybody because you fear you are the only one, or somehow deficient, unspiritual, or awful.

It could be that there is sin there. It very well could be. But the answer is to go to God.

If there is sin, He will show you. If there is a blockage, He will point it out. Young people, go to Him.

He is the One you need. Worship Him. Praise Him.

When I did that, God began to flood my soul with water. The feeling of emptiness went away, and the silence ceased as God spoke to me through the words of Scripture.

God gave us a great morning—not because it is measured by numbers or any of those things, but because He enabled me to meet the needs of others. Though I had felt dry, God welled up within me a fountain flowing with the very water of God, the water for which David thirsted.

I want to encourage you: if you are thirsty, go to the Lord. Seek His face. Praise Him even if you do not feel like it, and let Him lead your heart and mind.

I think that is where you will find exactly what you are lacking, seeking, and longing for. Young people, do not stay thirsty. Do not stay empty.

Do not stay in the silence. Worship God and seek Him. As you surrender to Him and depend upon Him, you will find all that your soul was longing for.