Trusting God Guides Us Through Hard Transitions

Send us a text

Change doesn’t just test plans; it tests hearts. We walk through the turbulent handoff from judges to monarchy in 1 Samuel and explore why some leaders bless the next season while others cling to control and crumble. Samuel stands in the tension, tasked with anointing a king the people demanded, modeling how to honor the past and obey God without being ruled by public pressure. Saul reveals the cost of pride and people pleasing, choosing his own plans and others’ opinions over God’s command. David offers a counterexample—humility, patience, and trust in God’s timing—showing a path for anyone facing a hard shift.

Across the conversation, we draw out practical lessons for transitions: how to bless new leadership, when to let go of approval, and why obedience beats optics. We talk about preparing for new roles without leaning on borrowed conviction, learning to hear God for yourself when mentors step back. We also dig into spiritual perception—seeing beyond what’s measurable to discern what’s true—so decisions aren’t driven by fear or trend-chasing. If you’ve ever felt torn between doing things the old way to keep peace and doing the right thing to keep faith, this one will steady your hands.

You’ll leave with simple, usable practices: cultivate humility and trust, evaluate choices by obedience rather than applause, and “stay in your lane” by aligning with God’s will instead of comparison. We close with prayer for wisdom and courage, inviting you to keep growing whether you’re starting a new role, handing one off, or standing in the messy middle. If this encouraged you, follow the show, share it with a friend who’s in transition, and leave a quick review to help others find these conversations.

Support the show

Loving Yeshua/Jesus, Loving people... Come as you are and you will be loved!
Feel free to check out our website by typing in lifearoundthefire.com or Life Around The Fire ... We think you'll find some beneficial stuff to look at and apply to your life.
Shalom to you and your home.

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_01 (00:38):
The story of King Saul in Samuel teaches that
transitions, right?
Transitions are oftenchallenging.
And they're marked by a strugglebetween human pride and the need

(01:00):
for obedience to God.
That prepar you know, in orderto have a healthy transition,
there needs to be properpreparation, including humility
and trust in God.

SPEAKER_00 (01:18):
Those two things right there, humility and trust
in God are essential fornavigating through transitions
successfully.
I'm gonna say that again.

SPEAKER_01 (01:36):
Humility and trust in God, or in other words,
obedience, learning how to obeyGod, not just our human pride
impulses, but to humblyacknowledge the fact that often

(02:04):
by ourselves we don't have allthe answers.
But when we turn to God, He canhelp us by providing us insights
into the situation that we'refacing.
In fact, that's whatrelationship's all about, and

(02:26):
that's what we're talking aboutis relationship with God.

SPEAKER_00 (02:31):
When we have a real open relationship with God,
being humble in the presence ofsomeone who is greater than you
is really not that difficult.

SPEAKER_01 (02:48):
But it's when we somehow place God in a smaller
category, and our problems orour own pride in a larger
category, larger than God,that's when we run into

(03:11):
complications.
And so humility and trust in Godis essential for navigating
through transitionssuccessfully.
And Samuel's role as the lastjudge and first prophet
highlights the difficultypassing from a previous system

(03:32):
to a new one.
And there will be difficulty intransitions.

SPEAKER_00 (03:44):
The challenge is what do we do with the
difficulty?

SPEAKER_01 (03:52):
Self-reliance and fear can lead to poor decisions
and ultimate failure, even whena person initially is chosen by
God.
Amazing.
And so we're highlighting inthis particular podcast episode

(04:17):
some lessons about transitionbecause we've been looking at
the book of First Samuel forquite some time now, and we're
right now moving beyond thiscall that the nation had for
them to no longer be ruled by ajudge or for God to be their

(04:43):
king, but they wanted a humanking.
And so God granted them theirdesires, and Samuel was going to
be the one that was going tofacilitate the transition.
An unenviable position, might Iadd.
And if you've ever been involvedin helping even a small group of

(05:08):
people go through transition,you can understand the fact that
if you are a leader in thatposition of helping, it's often
like volunteering to be ugly,because if you even bring up a
problem, you become the problemwhen there is an environment

(05:34):
that is anticipating a change togo their way, but yet they're
counting on you to make ithappen.

SPEAKER_00 (05:50):
Kind of passing the buck, right?

SPEAKER_01 (05:52):
And there is a temptation for people involved
in the position of facilitatinga transition to take upon
themselves too muchresponsibility for the change or
too little responsibility for achange.
So my heart goes out to thosewho are in the position of

(06:15):
facilitating a transitionbecause you're really not going
to be able to please everybody.
And if you have apeople-pleasing nature, it's
going to put stress on you likenothing else.
But if we can humbly look toGod, set our agendas aside, and

(06:45):
trust in Him during times oftransition, the transition is
going to still have challenges,but they're not going to be as
difficult as if we were justrelying on ourselves or our own
fear to guide us.

SPEAKER_00 (07:10):
So some lessons about transitions.

SPEAKER_01 (07:14):
The challenge of new leadership.
The transition from judges to amonarchy was a significant shift
that tested the people and theirnew leader, Samuel, the last
judge, in his position of havingto anoint the first king

(07:37):
ushering in a new era.
That was a challenge for the newleadership to be able to have
the old leadership bless them.
And if you are in a situationwhere you are going through a

(08:01):
change and you are part of theold regime, one of the biggest
challenges that you're going toface is to bless the new
leadership.
If you're being asked to stepaside, it is a very unnatural

(08:27):
thing to be gracious during thattime.
And Samuel was given thatopportunity, and by and large,
he passed with flying colors.
But that nonetheless is thechallenge of new leadership, and
that is to receive the blessingof the old leadership.

(08:53):
The danger of pride.
Saul's pride and self relianceled to his downfall as he often
prioritized his own plans andothers' opinions.
Get that?
He prioritized his own plans andother people's opinions over

(09:15):
God's will.
This serves as a cautionary taleabout the dangers of elevating
oneself above divine guidance.

SPEAKER_00 (09:28):
The need for humility and trust is another
lesson about transitions.

SPEAKER_01 (09:37):
In contrast to Saul, David is presented as an example
of humility and trust in God'stiming and plan.
The story suggests that trueleadership in times of
transition requires trusting Godrather than oneself.

SPEAKER_00 (09:57):
Interesting.
Trusting God rather thanoneself.

SPEAKER_01 (10:07):
And Samuel passed the test of transition, of
changing leadership.
Saul didn't.
He was unable to bless the newleadership.

SPEAKER_00 (10:22):
Samuel did, Saul didn't.
However, that doesn't excuse thenew leadership from doing things
in the right way.

(10:45):
Because a temptation can be totry to please the old leadership
and do things the old way.
But sometimes things have to bedone differently.

SPEAKER_01 (11:04):
However, it's by staying in tune with the will of
God.
We don't want to do thingsdifferently just because other
people are doing thingsdifferently.

SPEAKER_00 (11:20):
We need to stay in step with what God has in store
for our lives.
In essence, stay in your ownlane.
The importance of obedienceanother lesson about

(11:40):
transitions.

SPEAKER_01 (11:42):
The narrative emphasizes the importance of
obedience to God, highlightingthe consequences when leaders
fail to follow his commands,such as Saul's failure to fully
obey God's instructionsregarding the Amalekites.

SPEAKER_00 (12:03):
And last but not least, preparation for new
roles.

SPEAKER_01 (12:10):
The story shows the importance of preparing for a
new role.
Samuel's early intercessionswith Saul and the instruction
for Saul to go on alone likelysymbolized the responsibility
Saul now had to make his owndecisions.

SPEAKER_00 (12:32):
That's something that goes along with change.

SPEAKER_01 (12:42):
The new way of doing things is required to hear God
for themselves.
We can't rely on other people'sanointings.
We can't rely upon otherpeople's experiences.

(13:04):
We have to be able to hear fromGod ourselves.
And if we only want things thatwe can tangibly see, that we can
tangibly touch, that we cantangibly we can feel with our
five senses, well, there's goingto be some difficulties.

(13:28):
Because when we're talking aboutspiritual life, we're talking
about things that are notperceived, excuse me, we're
talking about things that areperceived, not always seen with
the naked eye.
We have to learn how to see withour spirits and trust what we

(13:53):
see.
Just like we trust what we seewith our eyes when we are going
from one room to the next.
We trust that we're not going tostumble because we can see
what's in front of us.

(14:13):
Same thing is true when we learnhow to see things spiritually.
We learn how to navigate.
But we can't rely upon someoneelse to see for us.
We have to be able to seeourselves.
And that's something we're goingto be looking at in the upcoming

(14:35):
episodes is how do we see thingsspiritually?
How do I perceive things?

SPEAKER_00 (14:44):
How do I go about perceiving things?

SPEAKER_01 (14:52):
For some of us in the Western Hemisphere, that's a
real challenge because we wantto be able to see things with
our naked eye or feel thingswith our fingers, taste things
with our taste buds, smellthings with our nostrils, hear
things with our ears.

(15:13):
We want to have things that arein front of us that are
important to us physically.
But we live in a dual reality,and so it's important for us to
be able to have spiritualperception because actually the

(15:33):
spiritual world is more realthan the physical world.
This physical world is going tobe changing significantly over
the course of the next fewyears, and the spiritual world
is going to be unveiled evenmore and more.

(15:53):
And so it behooves us to learnhow to function in the eternal
now, because the temporal isgoing to be changing, and
learning how to perceive thingsfrom our spiritual eyes is

(16:13):
something that God wants us tomature in, and for us to grow
in, because it affects ourrelationship with Him and with
each other.
And so we're going to be lookingat those aspects so that we can
kind of unfold what that meansin ways that can be applied.

(16:40):
And regardless of the level thatyou are at, there's capacity for
each one of us to grow.
So whether you're a beginner oryou're somewhere intermediate
along these lines, or you'readvanced, there's always room
for growth.
And so we encourage you to staytuned because there's a few
things that you're going to beable to pick up from and draw

(17:03):
from and apply to your life thatare going to impact you in your
spiritual journey as you look tocomply with the very will of
God, not only for your life, butfor the lifestyle of the group
that you're in.

SPEAKER_00 (17:22):
Let's pray.
Father, I thank you, God, thatyou are supreme in all that you
do.

SPEAKER_01 (17:34):
And your wisdom is a supreme acquisition.
So we look to acquire wisdomfrom you in order to be able to
see things, perceive things, togrow and develop and to move
through transitions effectively,in trusting you, in relying on
you, and obeying you, like Jesusdid, using him as the example.

(18:00):
So as we look to see how he wentabout doing things and how he
grew in his ability to fulfillthe things that you'd call him
to as a man.

(18:33):
So we ask for that ability to doso, just like Jesus did, and we
pray these things in his nameand we say, Amen.
Amen, amen, amen.
Alright, folks, we love you.
And if you have any thoughts,questions, concerns, please feel

(18:54):
free to drop us a line at LifeWe're on the Fire.
We would love to hear from you.
Or if you just type your LifeRon the Fire and look us up on
the web.
We look forward to yourresponses.
In the meantime, God bless you.
Adios, amigos.