NOTE: It's been a while since I write anything. My wife and I had our fourth child, a baby boy named Daniel Alberto, on October 25th, 2007 and it has been a rollercoaster ride since then. He's a blessing and a half, and his three sisters are crazy about him. I thank God for our beautiful baby boy.

I hope that this will be the first of many regular writings. I want to push myself to write because when I do, I find that I have more God thoughts than when I don't write; writing helps me to focus spiritually. I also find that thinking in front of my computer helps me to fight spiritual dryness, and that is something that I have been struggling with for a while now.

Now don't be shocked. It happens. Someone may be thinking of writing me a sympathetic or encouraging response. Please don't feel like you have to. My bouts of dryness are entirely my fault, and I know what I need to do to get past them.

Speaking of dryness, parts of the southeastern United States have been experiencing a severe drought. Here in Charlotte, North Carolina, we're not allowed to water our lawns at all, and there's talk of making water restrictions even more severe.

Without water, living things have a hard time thriving. And spiritual drought has a similar effect on us. We're alive, but we're not thriving. Oh, and when conditions are very dry, fires can start fairly easily.

Spiritual dryness can happen for a lot of different reasons.

Some people "dry out" because of a lack of involvement in church life. Nothing can dry you out more than just showing up to church on Sundays and going through the motions. You can be in church every Sunday and still feel that the soil of your soul is parched.

Others may experience a dry season because of a sinful habit. Instead of daily confessing our sin and continuing to walk, we drift further and further away from God, letting ourselves go and losing habits of prayer and faithfulness that we had cultivated for years.

Maybe the most difficult cases of dryness are the result of cynicism and rationalism. Some folks have been let down and defrauded so many times by people who claim to be Christians that they don't believe in anyone and question everything. The result is a dry, joyless faith.

In my own life, most of my dry seasons have come as a result of spiritual idleness. I really don't let any time go by without confessing my sins to the Lord and seeking restoration. I am pretty consistent about forgiving those who have hurt me and leaving justice and vengeance to the Lord. But nothing dries me up more than going through the motions of the faith without engaging myself with the Lord of the faith.

Today I am challenging myself and anyone reading this to engage, to check in spiritually, as well as mentally and emotionally. Nothing does more to refresh and restore the dry and dusty soul of a believer than to just get in the presence of God with their whole heart. That's what I intend to do, and I'll let you know how it goes. I'm praying for rain.