Numbers 27
There is something humbling about realizing a season is coming to an end. Most of us prefer beginnings. Beginnings come with excitement, fresh vision and new possibilities. Endings come with boxes, goodbyes and someone asking what you want to do with all those files you have been saving since 2007.
In Numbers 27, God tells Moses that his season of leadership is nearing its end. He will see the Promised Land, but he will not enter it. After forty years of leading Israel through complaining, rebellion, manna, wandering and enough conflict to make any pastor consider updating his résumé, Moses will not be the one who leads them across the finish line. What strikes me is what Moses does next. He does not argue about what he deserves. He does not negotiate for a few more years. He does not say, “After everything I have done for these people?” Instead, his concern immediately turns toward the people he has spent his life leading. He asks God to appoint someone who can lead Israel so they will not be “like sheep without a shepherd” (Numbers 27:17, NLT).
God chooses Joshua and then Moses publicly commissions him before the entire community. There is something incredibly healthy about that picture. Moses understood that the work of God was never supposed to end with him. His assignment had a beginning and an ending, but God’s work would continue.
That can be difficult for us to accept. We become attached to roles, ministries, careers, churches, organizations and seasons of life. We pour ourselves into something for years and without realizing it, what God entrusted to us can begin to feel like it belongs to us. Then the day comes when God asks us to place it into someone else’s hands. That is when leadership becomes less about what we have built and more about whether we are willing to prepare someone else to carry it forward.
Moses prepared Joshua. He encouraged him, commissioned him and gave him authority in front of the people. He did not treat Joshua as competition. He treated him as the person God had chosen to carry the mission into its next chapter. Maybe that is one of the clearest signs of mature leadership. We stop needing to be the person in the middle of everything and start finding joy in helping someone else succeed.
Whatever God has entrusted to you, hold it faithfully, but hold it loosely. Invest in people. Share what you have learned. Give someone else opportunities. Encourage the next generation. Celebrate when someone else gets to do something you once did. Every assignment eventually has an ending. God’s work does not.
Finishing well means remembering that the kingdom was never ours to build around ourselves. It belongs to God. We simply get the privilege of carrying our part for a season, and when that season is finished, faithfully placing it into the hands of those God chooses next.