One of the reasons transition is hard is because it requires you to travel dressed up like your destination and not where you are coming from or even where you are. The easiest way I understand it is this; imagine you are going for a costume ball or some sort of royal wedding, in order to fit into the crowd at that event, you must dress up in a costume or elegant apparel as the case may be but in a season of transition, you have to travel to that destination using a public bus or train.

What then happens is you end up through your journey on that bus or train looking like a misfit. Most of the people on that bus would probably be dressed up in their everyday clothing, which is a symbol of where you’re coming from or where you are, while you just look weird and so different. You do not look like where you’re coming from, and you still do not fit into where you are, it is like a displacement of sorts and that’s where the hard part is.

It is even harder because in transition, you do not always know exactly where the bus stop to your destination will be, or how long you have to stay on that bus or train ride, and that period of displacement is where everything that can distract you or make you doubt your destiny will happen.

We look around and because we do not fit where we are, we start to doubt if we would fit where we are dressed up for. If the bus ride is taking too long or there are lot of bumps, potholes, detours or accidents, we may start to ask, is this really worth it? am I really sure there is a destination for me? am I really sure I was invited to that party? am I really sure that God said what He said? am I really sure of the promise? Maybe I should just turn back, so I can return to my house clothes, fit in with everyone and not look so stupid.

And that is how people abort their destiny.

Dressing up here does not mean the literal clothes you wear, but rather it refers to things like, the decisions and choices we make, the way we choose to think and speak, the training we give ourselves, the places and people we cut off, the habits we embrace etc. The reason we have to dress up like where we are going is because our destiny depends on us fitting into our future and not our past. The reason the bus ride may take so long is because God uses the journey to strip us of everything we have carried on from where we are coming that would not serve us where we are going or can even detract from us when we get there. He also uses that bus ride to prepare and equip us with the tools, skills, etiquette, personality, resilience, insight etc that we need to perform optimally where He is taking us to, so we can have what it takes to fit into that place.

An understanding that the greater the destination, the greater or longer the preparation and equipping will be, and of course, the greater the external and internal opposition to get off the bus taking us there, is necessary for us to bear and overcome whatever we face on that bus.

Queen Esther is one of the popular references for God using a single person to save an entire race, but anytime I remember she had to spend a whole year anointing herself with oil before she could even come before King Ahasuerus, I wonder what would have been going through her mind at that time. Did she know what she was going to do for her people one day? Would she have said this is not worth it? Will he even pick me? Is this all I would be doing day in day out? I am bored? I am tired? She was faced with the reality that she could go through the entire thing for one year and not find favor before the King, but she completed the one year oiling process and eventually became the person God used to save her people from the despicable wickedness of Haman.

Her purpose was way bigger than her or her position as the queen, it was about what God was going to do through her in that position, and that would not have been possible if she did not go through that process or summon the courage to do what went against tradition to petition for her people.

In a season of transition, we can experience the urge to return back to where we are coming from, or the need to change back to our house clothes on the bus, especially on the days when the bus ride feels really long and difficult, or where it looks like people are staring at us funny because we look so different, but remember your purpose is usually bigger than you and your destiny depends on you looking more like where you are going than where you are coming from.

So, set your mind on your future and keep dressing up for where you are going.