Your Dip is what you make of it, it can be a Dip of Direction or a Dip of Despair. We all hit dips in our lives, you know when you feel God far away or you feel like nothing is working. All dips look different and our descent into the dip can be from various paths. This is why it is critical to discern your dip.
Dip of Disobedience
You could be in the dip because of disobedience. Think about David or even Jonah or even better yet Peter. Steve Furtick says if you are in a dip you need to ask, "Did I get myself into this dip."
Dipstick Dip
This dip comes on by lack of knowledge. You may make a financial decision that ends up sending you and your family into the dip.
Divine Dip
I believe there are times when God actually leads us into the dip. Look at Elijah in 1 Kings 17. He obeyed God stood up and said it would not rain unless he spoke it. Then God told him, "Leave here, turn eastward and hide in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan. You will drink from the brook, and I have ordered the ravens to feed you there." Verse 7 says, "Some time later the brook dried up because there had been no rain in the land." God led him to a place that would run out of water.
We have a choice when this happens, we can allow this to become the Dip of Despair or the Dip of Direction. So many times in my life when I hit the dip I go through a season of Despair. What I have noticed is that I actually create habits that keep me in the dip. Some of them for me is I will start watching a lot more T.V. instead of spending time with God, my quite time will begin to suffer, I stop trying to learn. The problem with these dips are that they keep you from the very source you need, to get you out of the dip. Many times and many people create these habits and they decide to make camp in the dip.
Whether you may be in the Dip of Disobedience, the Dipstick Dip, or the Divine Dip you get your way out the same way.
You look for insights. What got you here? What can I learn from this? Every good company does this. Think about the Iphone. When they released the first phone sales went through the roof. But at some point the sales began to drop. They had to look for insights, what can we do now?Well they needed a camera, so they put a camera on it, or make it faster. So they do this and the phones sales go through the roof again. They have done that over and over again.
A bad company would have said things like, there is nothing wrong with our phone. We do that so many times in our lives with God. We might disobey God and step out in sin, we need to repent and look for insights into what caused us to go down this path. You may be in a Divine Dip and God is wanting to reveal some things that draw you closer to him. It's much like a snake, the old skin has gotten to small, so the dip is the place God desires for you to recognize it.
You may be in a dip for awhile because of consequences of decisions or God has led you into the dip to help you grow. In all these cases it is to take you places with God that you have never been. To give you direction to a more intimate relationship with God.
If we allow our dip to be the Dip of Direction instead of Despair others will be impacted. Many times you will be directed to people who are in a dip themselves. Look at what happened to Elijah in verse 8-24, God tells him to go to Zarephath because there will be a widow who will supply food for him, a widow who has no flour is supernaturally blessed with flour and oil that will last until it begins to rain again, and after her son dies Elijah prays for him and he comes back to life.
Even if you are in the Dip of Disobedience or Dipstick Dip you can turn your dip into a Dip of Direction. God waste nothing in your life. So my question to you is this, whether you've gotten yourself into your dip or were led into your dip what will your end result be?
Many of these thought were developed from Pastor Steve Furticks sermon, The Dip, Divine Dip.
The idea of Dip of Direction comes from the book Switch which talks about the Valley of Insights.
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