Don't Falter after 500 Steps

Mike January 17, 2019 Great and Godly Leadership 2 Comments

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” You’ve probably heard this saying. It’s a helpful reminder that a plan doesn’t have to be perfect to get started.

Some leaders have difficulty taking the first step. But the more common leadership challenge is with the five-hundredth step, long after the journey has begun but well before it is finished. Three underlying reasons for this struggle are fatigue, resistance, and boredom. 

When people begin a journey, they are full of energy. They have a spring in their step. But meaningful journeys are almost always long, and long journeys take a toll on a leader’s energy. By the five-hundredth step, the spring is gone. Simply putting one foot in front of the other is an exhausting proposition.

When people begin a journey, they are also full of optimism. They are confident that this initiative will be the breakthrough that their church or ministry needs. After the prayer and planning that led to this decision, how could anyone object? And yet resistance is inevitable. As Tod Bolsinger says, “Leaders cannot assume success until after they have weathered the sabotage that naturally follows” (Canoeing the Mountains).

Some journeys are not derailed by fatigue or resistance, but rather by a leader’s short attention span. After the first few steps, their excitement fades, and they begin to dream about a shiny new opportunity. Before long, the old destination is replaced by a new one, and a brand new journey begins.

This assessment may sound gloomy, but you don’t have to succumb to one of these pitfalls. To keep going beyond 500 (or 5,000) steps, you need to:

• Have a settled conviction about the destination. If you are not convinced that you (and your team) have discerned God’s destination for your church or ministry, you are much more likely to falter in the journey. So before you begin publicly, spend enough time in prayer to settle this question in the privacy of your own soul.
• Share the journey. You are much less likely to be stopped in the journey if you take other leaders with you. They can carry the burden when you’re tired, lift your spirits when you’re discouraged, and challenge you to stay the course when you get bored. 

Galatians 6:9 instructs, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” That’s a good reminder for anyone who is somewhere between the start and finish of a God-given journey. 

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