Big D & the Good News Blues: Blog

Transitions, transitions.... life is full of
them, in fact each day begins and ends with
one. Transitions can come in many different
shapes and sizes, levels, intensity, quantity,
from first breath to death, transitions all have
this one thing in common: change.
TRANSITIONS: THE GOOD,
THE BAD & THE UGLY
The Good: A job promotion, graduation, a
new baby or a new puppy:), Springtime,
turning 16.....Transition/change can be as
simple as moving your furniture around for a
fresh look. I mean, when I change my living
room around, it’s a lot of work, but I like the
result; a big transition is someone getting out
of prison, they will need to ‘transition’ into
freedom; if your business grows, you will
have to ‘change’ the way you do things,
more employees, bigger facilities, etc. The
thing these ‘good’ transitions have in
common is hard work.
The Bad: death, loss, separation, sickness,
all seem like bad changes. Death seems like
a bad transition from this life to the next, but
depending on where you spend your eternity
(heaven or hell) will determine the good or
bad of it; Losing your job would seem like a
bad transition, but again, depending on what
God has planned for you, it could be just
what you need; Separation from loved ones
due to changing location, or war or some
other circumstance beyond our control can
be extremely difficult, yet manageable with
the Lord’s help. And I could go on, but won’t,
I think you get the picture:)
The Ugly: The transition from person to
person, the transfer of power. This happens
in our Country when a new President takes
office, or when a new CEO takes over a
company, or even when a leader of any kind
passes the baton to the next person who will
take their job. I guarantee the only way to
make it a smooth transition is to plan for it
and respect the process and the people
involved. You see, these kinds of transitions
can get ugly if they are not handled with
great care. Personally, I’m going through a
real whopper right now and I’m smart
enough to know that I NEED HELP! Help
from my Wonderful Counselor, the Holy
Spirit. He leads me to His Word where I find
this ‘people transition thing’ has happened
more than once over thousands of years.
Just let me say from the out set that this will
not be an exhaustive study on the subject,
but we’ll touch on a few ‘Biblical’ transitions
as are recorded for our example and
instruction.
My journey into this study started with God
transitioning Eli’s authority as the Prophet of
Israel to Samuel. This transition story is
found in 1 Sam. 3. We find Samuel as a boy
hearing the ‘word of the Lord’ for the first
time. Each time he heard his name he would
run to Eli and ask him what he wanted. On
the third time of Samuel coming, Eli realized
it was the LORD speaking to Samuel. He told
Samuel to say, ‘speak Lord, for Your servant
is listening.’ What God told Samuel in that
first encounter was regarding judgment
against Eli’s house. God chose Eli’s
‘replacement’ when he chose Samuel.
The next situation we’re going to look at is a
BIG one! It’s Israel’s desire to transition from
God as their King to a MAN being their King.
In those days Israel did not have a human
king, essentially, God was their King as HE
spoke through and directed the Prophet. But
one day, Israel, the whole nation of them,
decided they wanted to be like the other
nations and they wanted a (human) King to
lead them. (1 Sam. 8:5) Needless to say,
God is not happy with Israel’s request for a
human king to take HIS place. (1 Sam. 8:7)
Nevertheless, God starts the process of
giving them what they want, and it will cost
them dearly. (Please read 1 Sam. 8:11-21) In
verse 22, God tells Samuel to ‘give the
people what they want.’ Even God is not
happy with this transition, so all transitions
are not BEST, but God WILL have HIS way in
all of it because HE is the SOVEREIGN
RULER over the realm of mankind! So,
Samuel starts the grueling process of
managing (at God’s direction) transition from
God as Israel’s only King to Saul. The Lord
God directed Samuel in every step from
choosing Saul, to anointing Saul, to
appointing Saul as King over Israel. (1 Sam.
10) And once God made this decision, there
was no turning back.


PAGE 2
ENTER JEALOUSY
The next
transition
we’ll look at
is from King
Saul to
David. This
was a hard
o n e
because jealousy comes into play. As the
very first ever King of Israel, King Saul had
his way of doing things, and had no
experience with transition or desire for
anyone else to have his job! Maybe he
thought he would be the King forever, I don’t
know, but Saul was not happy at all about
young David taking his place. King Saul’s end
of story starts at 1 Sam. 13:14 after he
disobeyed the commandment of the Lord,
Samuel prophesies that Saul’s kingdom will
be taken away and given to a ‘man after
God’s own heart.’ As soon as David is
identified by the Lord as the future King of
Israel, Saul can do nothing but become
obsessed with trying to snuff out the
competition. (1 Sam. 18:7-9) King Saul ended
up chasing David to try to kill him if perhaps
somehow he could stop the PLAN of GOD.
Not a smooth transition at all, but one filled
with jealousy, contempt, regret, and
(attempted) murder.
Smooth Transitions
Going from King David to his son Solomon
was a pretty smooth transition. (1 Kings
2:1-10) My personal favorite is the transition
from EliJAH to EliSHA. Elijah makes me laugh
at how real he is. After one of the most
victorious times in his ministry (1 Kings
18:19-46), then probably the most defeated
time in his ministry where he feels like dying
(1 Kings 19:1-13) God tells him to anoint a
couple of Kings and his ‘prophet’
replacement (vs 15-16). The way I read this,
Elijah isn’t really into picking his replacement,
We see this in 1 Kings 19:19-20, Elijah sees
Elisha plowing, and as he (Elijah) walks by
him, he throws his mantle (robe) on him. The
scripture doesn’t say he went up and spoke
kindly to him, explained himself, then took off
his own robe and gently laid it on him, NO, he
THREW his robe on him. Now, I don’t really
know if that was standard procedure for
transition from one prophet to another, but
the next verse makes me think Elijah is just
not into this: vs 20 (Elisha is speaking)
“please let me kiss my father and mother,
then I will follow you.” And he (Elijah) said to
him, “Go back again, for what have I done to
you?” In today’s vernacular it might be like,
“whatever dude, it is what it is, do whatever
you want, uuugh!” After Elisha does the
goodbye ceremony with his family, he begins
to follow Elijah. For the next 3 years Elisha
serves and learns the ways of Elijah. In 2
Kings chapter two, we see the last days of
the Elijah-Elisha ministry. It’s so funny, but it’s
almost like Elijah is trying to ‘lose’
Elisha....Elijah tells him he’s going to a place
and tells Elisha he can’t come with him. He
does this three times, and each time Elisha
tells him, no way, I’m going with you! Finally,
Elijah asks Elisha what he can do for him
because the Lord is about to take Elijah away
from the earth. Elisha asks for a ‘double
portion’ of the spirit that Elijah has. (2 Kings
2:9-12) The rest is history, Elisha sees Elijah
get taken up in a whirlwind and receives the
double portion that he asked for. Another
smooth transition for the books:)
Now, let’s look at the smooth transition from
John the Baptist to Jesus. Read what John
says to his disciples in John 3:30 “I must
decrease, but HE must increase.” John
realized who he was and who he was not.
(Jn. 3:28-31) John 1:15: John bore witness of
Him, and cried out saying, “this is He of
Whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has a
higher rank than I, for He existed before me.’”
I think a major element of a successful,
smooth transition is humility. We see that
King Saul did not have humility, but David did
in his transition to Solomon. John had to be
further humbled as he watched his disciples
begin to follow Jesus: vs 35, Again the next
day John was standing with two of his
disciples, and he looked upon Jesus as He
walked, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of
God!” 37 and the two disciples heard him
speak, and they followed Jesus.
Now, I know there was no doubt in John’s
mind about who Jesus was, and he knew at
least logically that his disciples must begin to
follow Jesus since HE was the Messiah, but I
wonder if John didn’t have some kind of
sadness about this transition as he watched
those whom he had trained, lived with, and
with whom he had served together, begin to
leave him to follow Jesus. Sometimes I think
we can forget that these great icons of the
faith were human too, they had feelings and
stuff bothered them just like stuff can bother
us.
Now it becomes personal. I’ve worked at
many Churches over the years as a Worship
Leader and this is the first time I have ever
experienced a true, peaceful transfer of this
position to another person....while I’m still
there! Most of the time, the leadership opts
to NOT tell the congregation I’m leaving until
my final day there arrives. It’s a shock to the
congregation and not ideal, but that seems to
be the M.O. of most Churches making this
transition. This time though, it’s different. We
have told the congregation a couple months
ago that I would be moving away, and we are
now in the process of transitioning to another
Worship Leader. I had a mission, sort of like
John the Baptist, and having completed, or
at least mostly completing my mission of
training a worship team/leader, I must go on
my way to the next mission or good work
God has prepared for me to walk in. I’ll tell
you though, it’s a real battle for me to keep
my flesh in check and to walk in love and
humility during this time. It’s all new, not only
to me, but to everyone involved and I respect
the process that could turn ugly if any of us
let our guard (of humility) down.
DYING DAILY
It all comes down to love. Jesus died on the
cross because of His love for mankind, and
we, as His followers, must follow Him to the
cross for love sake. We must die daily in
order to be pleasing and obedient to Him.
(Luke 9:23) Everyday the cross awaits me,
every second I make a choice to live for
myself and die to the things of God, or to die
to myself, and live for my LORD....and it’s
really hard, but it’s really necessary for the
sake of God’s Kingdom, for the sake of love.
Transitions, transitions, this life is full of
them. As long as we live on this earth we will
have to deal with them. I only want to
encourage my brothers and sisters in Christ
who are reading this to make them as
smooth as possible, inasmuch as it depends
on us. It’s not about us... none of it is since
we have been crucified with Christ (Gal. 2:20).
If we want to be a part of any peaceful
transition from one to another in the Body of
Christ, we must do it for the sake of the
Kingdom, and say with all sincerity and
humility, “I must decrease, but HE (Jesus)
must increase.”
Peace IN, Denise aka Big D