What I do want to talk about next though is successful succession.

What we see here is that Elijah had a very successful ministry

and he's passing the proverbial baton to his successor, Elisha.

My wife Grace is here and when we first met... to his successor, Elisha.

My wife, Grace, is here, and when we first met,

we first met March 12, 1988,

and we were in high school, and she ran track.

And I didn't know anything about track, but I I like Grace so I had to figure out some things about track.

And so what I learned was that Grace was a sprinter.

She's fast but I caught her and she ran the 100 and then she ran the 4 by 100 relay and if you're familiar with that race they run around the track and then they have to pass off the baton to the next runner.

And so succession is literally the passing of the baton.

That analogy is used.

Well, I never ran track, but watching Grace, what I noticed I noticed was number one at some point you

need to hand off the baton like if one person just ran all the way around the

track they're disqualified you need to hand off the baton to the right

person at the right person

at the right time in the right place

and that transference is crucial

and many races are one or lost

at the baton handoff. And what happens is that the

runner who's carrying the baton they'll slow down a little bit as they enter

into that box of transition and then the person who is going to carry the baton,

...