Among the many life-fitting metaphors of baseball, the slump is one of them. It feels like it will never end. But the key is to make your adjustments and keep swinging.

4 min read

As I write this, one of my favorite baseball players is going through a bit of a slump. Before the season started, his optimism and confidence were soaring. But after coming up short in several games in a row, the confidence is slowly fading.

For the slumping batter, a sense of panic knocks on the door. Will I ever hit the ball again? Is this slump going to be my undoing?

Even if you never played baseball, or are unfamiliar with the game, you understand what it feels like to slump. When you are giving it your all out on the field, but the results don’t reflect that, it can be incredibly frustrating. When you have struck out or hit the ball right to a defender for an out – again – the walk back to the dugout to rejoin the team is long, lonely, and humiliating.

It has a way of making you feel lower than dirt.

But the truth is, there isn’t a baseball player who has not experienced a slump. It happens, even to the best of them. In fact, it is part of the rhythm and beauty of the game. It must be. If the very best hitters only succeed 1 out of 3 times at bat, that tells you that slumps are more common than hot streaks.

The Psychology of the Slump

As with many things in life, the hardest part of a slump is the mental part. It gets into your head. You start to overthink and hyper-analyze, which is counter-productive. When you need your body to be relaxed and loose, the excessive thoughts make you tight and rigid. This makes the problem even worse.

So, what to do?

To break out of a slump, whether in baseball or in life in general, here are a few things to keep in mind:

1. Realize that you’ve been here before. Though it may feel like your worst slump ever, this isn’t your first and it won’t be your last. Just as you found your way out of past slumps, you will find your way out of this one. It feels permanent, but it isn’t. God will help you. You will get past it.
2. Evaluate yourself, but don’t be too critical. The baseball player I mentioned is probably watching video of his swing to see if anything’s off in his mechanics. There may be a minor adjustment to make, or maybe there is absolutely nothing wrong and he just needs to keep swinging. The same is true for those of us slumping in life. As we analyze ourselves, we should bear in mind that God is patient with us. He gives much grace for the ups and downs of our journey to become more like Jesus. You may be down right now and feeling like a total loser, but your identity is not in your performance. It never was. You’re still in Jesus and he’s still in you.
3. Stick with your process. The worst thing you can do when you’re going through a slump is to abandon your process. Even if you feel like all you’re doing is swinging and missing, stay committed to the essentials. Switch it up a bit if necessary, but otherwise keep on grinding. Stay in the Word. Keep your prayer line open. And keep yourself in connection with other believers. Keep doing what you were doing, even if it feels monotonous and ineffective. It’ll pay off eventually.

Breakthrough

As for that ball player I mentioned, things got so bad for him his own fans were booing him. It was a bad slump.

But things turned around for him the other night. He won the game for his team with a dramatic walk-off hit. For now, he’s out of the slump. He’s walking up to the plate with confidence again.

For the righteous falls seven times and rises again…

Proverbs 24:16

That’s the nature of the game. And that’s the nature of life. As hard as it is to do, we have to keep slumps in perspective. As the old sage said, “For everything there is a season.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1). In other words, seasons come and seasons go. The important thing is that in all those seasons, God remains the same. He never slumps. In his love, his faithfulness, and in all his attributes, he is constant.

So, if you’re swinging and missing right now, keep on swinging. You’ll connect eventually. And that slump will be behind you.

It’s a new day with God. Run with it.