Note: On Fridays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.
Back on the Fourth of July weekend, I clanged some exercise equipment on my right ankle. It swelled up and turned black and blue, but I still could walk without any pain. Now here it is practically Labor Day, and my ankle still has a goose egg on it, albeit smaller and minus the colors of the rainbows. I 
suppose I should go see the doctor anyway, but I keep putting it off. I do know that I’ve spent a lot of time poking and probing and testing that ankle instead of assuming good health and otherwise ignoring it.
Maybe it’s the same way with our spiritual health. When all is well and we have an ongoing communication with the Lord, we don’t think a lot about how the relationship could become even deeper or how we could live in ways even more pleasing to Him.
How much harder life is when our spiritual “bones” dry out, when we are confronted with the reality that what we want now, right now, is not part of the Lord’s immediate plan for us. It’s like with my ankle. The situation’s made me more conscious of the parts of my body that don’t work, and more appreciative of the parts that do. Spiritual dryness can remind us to appreciate the times when our souls are well watered and fed… and poke and prod and test when our interior life isn’t working the way it should. We can pray for the Lord’s breath to come upon us and heal us as no doctor’s visit or ankle brace could ever do.
