The Mindset of Moving On

Last week I was putting on a lid for some tomato soup I was going to bring for my lunch at work. It was moments before I was about to head out the door, and I was already running a little late. And as I forcefully tried to get that lid on the container, it flipped the whole container towards me, spilling tomato soup all over my new jeans and my carpet.

Frustrated, I tried to scrub the soup out of the carpet and my jeans. I hurriedly made my way to work (with sadly no tomato soup). Work was rough that day. Words were spoken. Emotions were felt. And after a series of unfortunate events, I headed home in the early morning hours feeling exhausted.

I opened up to Matthew that night and read this: “Jesus, knowing they were out to get Him, moved on.” I read it again. And again. And then I wrote it down. And something about that just resonated with me.

He moved on. The guy who was fighting for everyone yet had everyone fighting against him. The guy who healed the sick and gave food to the hungry and sight to the blind, yet had people out to get him. But Jesus. Moved. On.

And sometimes I think we forget that we have that choice as well. We get to choose whether or not we move on. Whether or not we let go of the circumstances that don’t make sense in our lives right now. Or the things those people said about us. Or the hurt we feel after a loss. Or the mistake we made five years ago. Or the tomato soup we spill all over new jeans.

Just like Jesus, we have the power to move on. We have the power to choose hope when maybe right now it just looks like defeat. To choose faith when there’s a whole lot of fear. To choose positivity in a world of negativity.

Will this choice be a hard one? Yes. Will it cause some people to walk away from you? Yes. But check this out - right after it said Jesus moved on, it says, “A lot of people followed him, and he healed them all.” The right people followed Jesus after he had moved on. Yes, he lost some people, but he gained the right ones. And people were healed by Him because He chose to move on.

So I don’t know what situation you’re in right now or what hurt you’re feeling or what mistakes from the past are haunting you today, but I do know that God has given you the power to move on. Life will be filled with situations we don’t necessarily want, but we have the power to choose how we respond to those situations.

Verses later, Matthew, in a somewhat gross way, says, “Listen, and take this to heart: It’s not what you swallow that pollutes your life, but what you vomit up.”

In other words, life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it. You’ve got the power to move on. 

You have the power to see light where there is darkness. To see growth where there is pain. To see opportunity where there is change. 

You have the power to see goodness in the places society tells you it doesn’t exist. To see hope where there is hurt. To see triumph where there are trials.

But you also have the power to see the annoyances, the small things that just don’t seem to go your way. You have the power to see the faults in people. Their flaws and imperfections. You have the power to see your problems. Your brokenness. Your mistakes.

Each day you’re given the choice as to how you look at things. As to how you move on. 

Now the question is - what will you choose to see today?