Every morning I walk our two massive dogs (if you saw me, you would think, “That lady is crazy” and laugh at my reality). A few months back, while passing through our local park, we happened upon a bunny whose back legs were paralyzed. Being as my heart went out to the poor little fella and I had a rare semi-free morning, I decided to try to help it.

Coming back with my purple latex kitchen gloves and a brown box, I scooped the terrified critter into the box. It’s whole little body was shaking as I carried the box back up the hill to my car. For the entire car ride to the other side of the city, the bunny would alternate between the paralysis of fear and an attempt to escape by pressing its paws into the corner of the box.

I had one hand on the wheel and one hand trying to steady the box in the backseat (I know, I know, I didn’t follow ten-and-two protocol). As tears filled my eyes, I tried to reassure the poor creature throughout the drive (which must have been terrifying to a bunny who had only hopped as far as his feet could carry him).

The tears were partially because I do have a soft spot for broken things but partially because the Lord used that moment to remind of truth I so desperately needed then (and still need now).

Transition Implies Transit

The word transition bears in its root the idea of transit: something being moved from one location to another (to go across in the Latin). Yet, ,when I think of transition and/or experience seasons of transition, I tend to focus almost exclusively on myself and the movement (or the maddening lack thereof). I forget the Mover, the One who sovereign steers and gently steadies me in the process of transition.

Like my bunny friend, I feel the fear of losing the familiar, I dread the constricting box in which I am being transported, and I want to get away. Transitions, whether a move from one city to another, a move from one role to another, or a move from one stage to another, can be terrifying.

The gift God gave me through my bunny was a different perspective on transitions from the eye of the one initiating and enabling the transit. I knew exactly where I was going. I knew that I was taking the bunny from danger through discomfort to hope and health. Yet, I cared about his experience along the way. I was not stoic and detached, but deeply engaged while staying the course of my executive action.

The Scriptures are replete with examples of God both steering and steadying his people through transitions. In fact, it can be argued that God’s people have always been in a state of transition. From God’s covenant with Abraham, we find near-constant transition. Stasis and seasons of stability were the small islands in a massive sea of change and transition. The closest Abraham got to owning a stable piece of property was the cave he purchased to bury his beloved partner in transition, Sarah. Their lives with God were more traveling and tenting than arrival and stability. Jacob lived in transition, as did Joseph, as did Moses and his motley, meandering flock. The exiles and returns of ancient Israel were transitions-en-masse. Unlike foxes and birds, The early church had very little time in stasis before the diaspora which sent them out.

Hebrews 11 solidifies, normalizes, and even holds up this state of trusting-God-in-transition as evidence of faith and recognition that our only lasting resting place is the presence of our Triune God.

When we speak about transition, we tend to limit it to physical moves or massive changes, but our lives are populated with a series of small yet significant transitions. From one stage of parenting to another, from one degree of glory to another. In whatever tiny or treacherous transition you find yourself, may you know the nearness of the One who who carries you constantly. He steers you with His perfect wisdom, yet he steadies you with his quiet love (Isaiah 46: 3–4; Zephaniah 3: 17). May you feel his steadying hand, his soothing whispers of confident comfort, and his sovereign steering as you travel in your own brown box.