Guest Dip Story: Bobby Williams

Not too long ago I went hiking with a good friend of mine in the Smoky Mountains
of East Tennessee. The trail we chose started going downhill 2.5 miles,
then uphill the last 1 mile. We reached a great vista, beautiful mountain
top and had a great time. Then we had to come back…1 mile down hill and
then a painful climb 2.5 miles back uphill to our staging area. I’ll be
honest…I wanted to quit. It was hard. It wasn’t much fun at that
point. The problem was we were trying to make it back quicker than what it
took for us to make it to the mountain top. There was no steady
pace. In order to make it through THE DIP, when you come out of it
on your way back to the top, realize that you can’t do it in an hour, or a
day. Climbing mountains is about a steady pace, and so is
recovering from THE DIP. Here a few tips that might help you.

• Know that THERE WILL BE A DIP
  • Yes, it’s coming. At some point in your career there will be a dip
    of some sort. Just like in hiking, if you go down, you have to come
    back up to get a place where you want to be. Knowing there is a dip
    coming ahead, whether you know when or not, you can pace yourself
    accordingly.
• STAY in for the long haul
  • I’ll be honest; when I was on that hike coming back up, I wanted to
    quit. It was not fun. But I had committed to hiking with my
    best friend a trail that we knew would be difficult. The reward for
    finishing was the great memories we would have and the stories we could
    tell about taking on very difficult task. Plus, we were out there, we
    HAD to FINISH. I’ll make this short and sweet; don’t get into
    ministry if you can’t handle failure, heat, and criticism; it’s gonna be
    tough. I’ll even go one step further and say that if you don’t
    already know that you’ll be in ministry for your lifetime, then just don’t
    do it. God’s call on our lives is a lifetime call. When things
    take a dip, we can’t quit and when it’s time to head up the mountain, we
    must reach the top. Moses didn’t quit when faced with 40 years in the
    wilderness leading a grumbling, ungrateful people. Demand to NOT
    QUIT.
• PACE yourself
  • . Be healthy in your pace. Don’t overexert yourself.
    Don’t try to arrive at your destination too soon. When you try and
    do these things, you miss everything good around you, only trying to
    achieve your goal. On our way back to the top of the mountain, we
    totally forgot to enjoy the beauty around us. Part of hiking is
    enjoying your surroundings. In fact, we were so focused on getting
    to the top, we hardly talked, missing out on time we had together. A
    steady pace would had remedied all of this and will do the same for you
    when you’re coming out of your DIP.

Bobby Williams is Pastor of Student Ministry for New Life Fellowship in Clinton, Tennessee.

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Sponsored by: Raising Lazarus: A Fund for Hurting Youth Workers.