Sorry it has been a few days since my last post. Transition is a process it is seldom instantaneous and I have been in a process of transition, one of many I have experienced over thirty years of ministry. Some of them have been easy, others have been difficult and some, like this one, have taken a long time, five years to be exact.

I’ve discovered that the longer and/or the more difficult the transition, the greater the impact to others on the other side. It’s as if God is saying, “Justice is served if difficulty precedes victory.”

Personally, I am at the end of a five-year period of transition. Two years through the dark night of the spirit, one year to reorient and recover and two years to pull the change off. So for those of you who are “on the tarmac waiting for the plane to take off,” I have great empathy and remember “tribulation works patience in us.” UGH!

I’ve seen that often when the transition takes a prolonged length of time it is so two things can come into alignment; the first is preparation and the second is timing. Preparation also has two facets; your preparation and the preparation of those who you will impact and who will impact you. For either party most of the time preparation is not educational acquisition, but spiritual acquisition.

The second, timing, comes into play as God’s purpose for taking you where He is taking you – be it geographical or otherwise - and your preparation converge. The result of this convergence hallmarks the end of transition and the beginning of hope and fruitfulness. Proverbs tells us that he who rules his spirit is greater than he who takes a city. Sometimes we have to learn to rule ourselves before we can have rule where we are going.

I do have something very important to say about the process of transition, especially when it takes a long time for convergence to happen. Always leave the place where you are better than when you arrived. This is part of the reason God placed you where you are, even if it is temporary step on your road to your destiny. It is your part in God’s original mandate of subduing the Earth and learning to rule. Leave it better off for knowing you.

There are prophetic buzz words for transition and when you hear them you’d better understand that on the other side of that buzz word life as you know it will be irrevocably altered. Some of those buzz words are, “new thing,” “cocoon,” “different path,” “your chosen to…,” “change, change, change,” and “you’ve not gone this way before.” Perhaps you have some buzz words for transition that you’ve heard?

I have noticed three phases to transition, I’ll write about them next post.

Blessings,
John Paul

I see the analogy between “Transition” and Gideon giving God his future puzzled some of you. Here are the core elements of the analogy. Gideon underwent an enormous transition – from coward to hero in just a matter of weeks. More than a dozen times in the Biblical account of Gideon he refers to himself as being afraid and went on to state he was the least in all of his clan and in all of Israel.

In fact, as the story opens we find Gideon hiding behind the walls of the wine press grinding the little grain that the Mideonites had not taken. How did Gideon give God his future? He did it when he sacrificed the second bull of the herd. You see the first bull was already offered to the Lord. The second bull was to propagate the herd and produce new calves, thus the size of the herd would increase. If you kill the second bull, in effect you kill your future.

Gideon’s transition was to learn to trust the Lord and not fear the future. This is the first step in any transition, learning to trust and not fear. For those who love change it is easy, for the more stable ones who do not like change, this becomes more difficult. Keep in mind that all of us, at some point in our lives do not like change. If you have not discovered your own resistance to change, just wait, it is coming.

I agree, saying yes to God’s direction is not always that simple. Most of the time we are saying yes to a future that we have no clue as to what it will look like. The key here is to recognize that what we are seeing or perceiving actually is God’s direction for our life and say yes to what we know. I repeat, “Say yes to what you know is from God.”

You will know it is God’s plan by the peace you feel. Until you have that peace you have no responsibility to say yes. The most important sign that the next step is God’s plan for you is this deep seeded peace. Keep in mind peace does not equate to knowing all the answers. It does equate to the realization that after the transition all will be better.

Transition is a good topic because I suspect that as this year progresses, many of you will experience the most intense time of transition you have faced up to this point in your life and you’ll need to know this topic well.

Blessings,
John Paul

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Transition is a difficult time for, most of us. To some it signals the chance for things to get worse. For others, it heralds that times are going to become better. There is one thing about transition, it signals it is time for us to change places. It is important to be where God wants us to be. I have often stated that God will move Heaven and Earth to get you where He wants you to be - if you are where He wants you to be. Transition changes who we impact, who impacts us and eventually how we decide what we decide.

One cannot make “right choices” from “wrong places.” When we step into a job, church, town, state or even a nation where God has not sent us we lose something. Perhaps it is just a little loss of God’s hedge of protection. One might say, “God’s greatest blessings can be found where He want us to be.” Perhaps we lose a little of ours spiritual perception and decision making ability, because we do not have the fullness of His insight with us. Perhaps we simply fail to recognize forces that might come against us, because we are a little less spiritually intuitive.

What do we do when we find we are not where God wants us? The answer? Godly sorrow and repentance for resisting His plan for our lives. God will take you where He wants, you just have to say yes and go - when He says and not overreact. What if one has a history of wrong choices? Then there are two things to remember: First, Godly sorrow and repentance erases the past. Second, and very important things to remember is not take the past with you into the future! Leave it there. God wants to be able to start all over with you. Let Him.

The balance of 2008 will be the “best of times and the worst of times” for many of you. For those who do not take the past with them it will become the best of times. For those who live in the past, and take it with them it could be the worst of times. Lot’s wife looked back to the past and it cost her dearly. Look to the future and what God’s desire for your life might actually be. Give the Lord your future, you could be a Gideon who had to slay his future to get to his destiny.

Join me in the “best of times” with the Lord. I’ll talk more about “Transition” in my next posting.

Blessings,
John Paul