 In our Christian journey with God, many times we go through dry seasons, wilderness seasons and a lot of times when people go through these seasons, they get very discouraged and they don't know what to do and I want to share with you a few practical tips on what to do when you hit a dry season. Number one, everybody goes through a dry season through a wilderness, but what you do in that dry season determines how long you're going to be in it. You can't avoid it, but how you respond in your wilderness determines how long it will go on. Israel was expected to make a journey for 14 days once they came out of Egypt, but it lasted 40 years because of their attitude. Jesus went through wilderness and his journey lasted only 40 days because Israel complained, Jesus, he commended or he proclaimed the word of God. And so what you do in your wilderness determines how long it will last. No matter how deep you are with God, you can't avoid wilderness, but what you do in your wilderness determines how long it will last. Number two, the Holy Spirit will lead you to a wilderness, but only the Holy Scriptures will get you out of the wilderness. The Bible says that Jesus was led by the Spirit into wilderness. Sometimes you will be led by God's Spirit to do something that will lend you in a dry season of your life. You feel disconnected, you feel confused, you feel like it's dead here, you're stuck there, and then you try to rely on the Holy Spirit during that time and you will not feel like you're connected to Him. So what I tell people is in your wilderness you most likely are not going to feel the Holy Spirit. Therefore you must feast on the Holy Scriptures. Rely less on your feelings and more on facts. Rely less on what you are feeling and more on what you know. Paul says, I know that my redeemer, excuse me, Job says, I know my redeemer lives. Paul says, I know whom I believe. When you're going through a hard time you can't rely on what you feel. You gotta rely on what you know. Number three, when you're going through a wilderness time, remember God's silence is not God's absence. What makes wilderness most difficult is God's silence. A lot of times in the wilderness, God is silent. You don't feel His presence and you don't hear His voice. But God's silence is not God's absence. You know, when I was in school, during the test, the teacher was always silent. But it didn't mean that did not mean that the teacher was gone. And so what I had to do during the test is instead of raising my hand and say, hey, help me out. Come on, teacher, speak to me. I had to kind of lower my head and I had to remember everything that the teacher told me before she or he stopped speaking. So when you stop hearing God's voice in the wilderness, remember what He said before you came into this season of your life. Remember His promises. Remember His dreams. Reflect on what He's done before. It will help you to get out of this season. And when you come out from the season of wilderness, you will feel His presence again and you will hear His voice again. Number four, if you're going through hell, keep going. You know, I think it's one of the Churchill or somebody that said that if you're going through hell, keep going. But Bible says this is that if you're walking through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil. But I want you to notice it says walking through. That means there's this principle of sometimes you just got to keep on going. Keep on going. Bible says that not to look back. Paul says, I forget things behind me and I look forward to the things that are in front of me. The angels told Lot and his family, they said, run for your life. Don't look back. And then there's this statement that ministers to me a lot. Do not stay in the plane. Plane is plateau. It's things that are the same. And the angels told Lot, do not stay there. Meaning don't build an apartment there. Don't build your doctrine there. Don't stay there. Walk through that quickly into the mountains, meaning into your experiences with God. And sometimes the way you go through the wilderness is you just go through it one day at a time. Keep going at it. And as you do that, you will see that you will come out of it. Number five, God doesn't just reward us when we find him, but he rewards us when we seek him. That is such an encouraging thought. The Bible says in Hebrews chapter 11 verse 6 that without faith it's impossible to please God. He who comes to God must believe that he is and he's the rewarder, watch this, of those that seek him. God rewards not only those who find him, but those who seek him. The Bible says in Matthew chapter 5 is that blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. In order to hunger for something, you got to have absence or lack of it. Meaning God says, I'll bless you for wanting to be righteous. I'll bless you for seeking me. It says of David that he was a man after God's heart. It didn't say he had God's heart. We know he made a lot of mistakes. And so in the wilderness, a lot of times you don't find what you're looking for. And you feel discouraged, but I want to encourage you to let you know the very act of pursuing it and seeking it. God says, I'll bless you for it. Number six, when you're in the wilderness, typically you're suffering, you're hurting. Remember, don't use suffering as an excuse not to serve. The first healing that happened in the Bible is when God asked Abraham to pray for the barren women while his own wife was barren. Joseph was expected by God to translate dreams of other people while his own dream was on hold. Job was praying for his friends when his own life was falling apart. Jesus, he healed a man while he was being arrested. And he led another man to salvation on the cross in the middle of his pain. A lot of people, they use their pain as an excuse not to serve. They use their pain as an excuse not to help other people, but in reality, sometimes the best way and the quickest way to get out of your wilderness is to stop wallowing in your self pity. Pick up a towel, find somebody who's hurting more than you and help them. Life is like tennis. Those who serve well, seldomly lose. Number seven, the best thing you can do on your worst day sometimes is take a nap. Yeah, you heard me right. Jesus in the storm took a nap. Woke up, commanded the storm. Disciples were not all working themselves to death and being so anxious. When Elijah was suicidal and didn't want to live, Angel came to him and gave him a good meal and told him to go to sleep. Yes, he was in spiritual. He didn't tell him to pray and fast. He told him to get some good sleep and to eat because a lot of times our emotions are affected by our physical being. What I like to do and I encourage you is schedule your pleasures, meaning things that replenish you, restore you, schedule them because nobody's going to schedule them for you. Nobody's going to give those things to you. You got to take them. It says of Mary that she has chosen the good part and it will never be taken from her. Martha was full of anxiety because she was waiting for somebody to make her restful, but you got to schedule your rests. You got to schedule your pleasures, schedule your refreshing times, learn to take care of your physical body, learn to exercise, learn to eat well and honestly, learn to sleep well. Sometimes you got to cut off the social media for a little bit. Don't look at social media before you go to sleep so you can get a good night's sleep because you have no idea how much that affects your emotions and how your emotions affect your spiritual life. Number eight, if you miss your devotions, you have not missed your devotion. We must understand a lot of times people struggle in their relationship with God because of this. They skip, you know, under devotion in life for a little bit and they lose a track of their Bible reading and they feel like, oh, I feel so guilty, but I want to tell you something. God wants you to understand that devotion is your life given to God. Devotions is your time spent with God and if you miss on your devotions, I don't encourage that, but you shouldn't feel guilty. You should feel like you miss God. You know, if you don't see a friend for a long time, you don't feel guilty. You miss them because God wants a relationship, not a set of rules for us to obey. Devotion is my life given to God. Devotions is my time spent with Him. Number nine, in your wilderness, do not make permanent decisions based on temporary feelings. The problem that happens with wilderness is many people decide permanently about their life when they're not doing good. Never make a decision when you're not feeling well. Never make a decision about your job. Never make a decision about your church, your ministry, about your relationships. Wilderness is not a time to make decisions. Wilderness is a time to make progress. Wilderness is a time to push forward. Don't make decisions because you can curse your future based on a temporary feeling. There was one woman, she was giving birth to a son and she called her Ichabod, meaning the glory of God departed and she labeled this guy's full identity and whole life based on one incident because at the time that she was giving birth to a son, she was in pain and the Ark of God was captured. The crazy part is this, is that not long after David became a king, the Ark of God came back, but this poor boy lived all his life with the name Ichabod. Don't make permanent decisions based on painful situations because those situations are not going to last, but those decisions will. Number 10 and what to do when you are in the wilderness is develop patience and stamina. You have to understand one thing is that sickness compared to a lion and one thing that lions have is they have a small heart and lions don't have a stamina. Unlike other animals, lions don't have, they can't run for very long and Satan, that's his characteristic. He wants to build within Christians an impatient spirit. I remember when I started the youth ministry and one time I hit a very dry, dry season. I came to my pastor and I said pastor, I am discouraged, I want to give up. I was like 17 years of age and he looked at me, he said, Vlad, do you know the difference between a young horse and an old horse? And I said, well, I don't know much about horses. He said, young horse starts really fast, beats all the horses at first. And an old horse starts slow, but an old horse always beats the young horse because he has a stamina. He looked at me and he says, you are a young horse. He says, you ran your first lap and you're dying, you're tired, you're giving up. He says, God ministry is not a sprint, it's a marathon. And so if you want one thing that you have to learn is the Holy Spirit will develop within you self-control and spirit of patience. And patience is waiting upon God with a good attitude. And so there is no way patience can be developed without the opportunity to be patient. And when God presents the opportunity to be patient, we typically pray, Adam and we say, Lord, take this away, take this away. But how is patient going to be developed if you're not going to have opportunities to be patient? So I just want to encourage you, if you're going through a very dry season of your life right now, hang in there, help is on the way. God hasn't forsaken you. God hasn't abandoned you. You haven't done something that God can forgive. Hang in there because God is coming. You will come out of this wilderness like Jesus did and you will enter into a new season with the new glory, with the new level of anointing, with the new level of revelation, with God's blessing will rest upon your life. I just pray for you right now in Jesus' name. If you're going through a wilderness, I'm just sending God's grace your way. I'm sending, let God's angels strengthen you, let God's grace support you, let your mouth not become a source of complaining, but a source of proclaiming God's promises. Hang in there, help is on the way.