Moving on or moving forward has to be one of the hardest things to do in life especially when what you are leaving behind is all you have known for the better part of 20 years or longer. Its even harder when it isn’t by choice and you feel like you lost everything that you have sacrificed for. So how do you move on? How do you know that the later part of your life can be better than the first part? I would like to share with you What God is showing me in my mess called life.
Why Do We Need To Move on?
Breakups and an end of an era are always hard and honestly, they happen for a ton of different reasons. What I have learned is that sometimes God removes, prunes and blows up things because He knows that is the only way your stubborn self will listen and learn. I am guilty of that! I have also learned that its never “over” when it comes to God and that he can do anything he wants. He loves to show off and show up at the perfect timing and you can bet that what he assembles, no man can destroy (Mark10:9). Since joining the men’s group at church, I have prayed for and seen firsthand the most amazing transformations of people, relationships and marriages and have seen God heal and restore relationships that the world had written off long ago. Relationships that by worldly standards “had zero chance”. But with God all things are possible (Matthew 19:26). God Himself says : And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast”.(1Peter5:10). In the past 3+ months, God and I have had many discussions about what a “little while” is 😊! In all seriousness, we do not know the timeline of God and/or if His will is to restore your “old” life better than before or if He has other plans for you that are even better. That is why you need to move on. So how do you do that?
How to “Move on”
The first thing that everyone needs to be able to move on in life is to Be Able to Forgive. (Matthew 6:14-15) That starts with forgiving yourself and continues on with asking forgiveness from any one of those people that you have wronged and that need to forgive you. In my case the people that I needed to ask for forgiveness, I was not able to speak to so I had to rely on the Lord as my only source of forgiveness. If you are unable to forgive yourself for your actions and you’re not willing to ask other people to forgive you for your shortcomings, not everything, but the things you know were your fault, then you cannot ever move on. You will be stuck in the muck or life and always in a state of loss and mourning. Once I was able to ask for forgiveness my life changed in the ability for me to be happy and to move forward without being in a state of loss all day. I can honestly say I was happy days after being ousted from my waterfront home and sleeping in my new boat. Old Vernon would have been bitter and angry. God is good!
The second thing that I was told to do was to make a list of Everything I Was Grateful for or Thankful for. I’ll admit that the list was pretty short in the beginning (like one thing) but as I forced myself to add to it daily, the list became so long that I had to use a different notepad to do it daily. Now I put it on the mirror daily in dry erase markers. This daily task is essential because whatever you spend time thinking about, your head will fill with even more of those things (Matthew4:7). If all you think about is how you were wronged, you life and head will be filled with more and more memories of how you’ve been hurt taking you deeper into despair, fear and anxiety. If you focus on the thankfulness, God reminds you that not all things were terrible, He fills our head with the good memories and it makes it much easier to be happy and forgive those who are “persecuting you”. Do not skip this step! You will regret it.
The third thing that was essential is to Humble Yourself (James 4:10). Was I 100% of the issues or at 100% fault for the breakup in my life? Of course not, but if we argue about who was or what percentage we own, we will view the other party/parties as the enemy. God says that people are not your enemy. Their desires and actions are often (or always) driven by the opposite of the Holy Spirit and that is why we cannot attack back and need to humble ourselves (Ephesians 6:12-13). If you are able to humble yourself enough to pray for those who are doing bad against you or that wish you ill will, you will see that God has amazing things in store for you. This was incredibly hard for me so I forced myself to have an active list of “those people” and I prayed scripture over those folks that God had given me via my mentor Pastor Rick. More on that later. Did this mean that I never slipped and never wanted to defend myself or talk bad about some of these people? Of course not, my big mouth got in the way for sure. But that is where the grace of God comes in and forgiveness is always ready. Can you Humble yourself in the face of crisis and own your part of the issues?
Finding a Mentor That Has Gone Through the Same Thing and has biblical discernment is essential. The reason you need this is that our friends will always support you even if you are wrong and they tend to get caught up in the emotion of the situation. They only see one side, your side! They feed the part of us that keeps us on focused on the negative not the positive. They tell us to make sure we “get what we deserve” or that “we shouldn’t take them back”. This feeds the fire and thus keeps the feud alive and well. Your mentor needs to be able to see both sides through biblical understanding and is a peacemaker in nature (Matthew 5:9). He or she must be able to call you out on your shortcomings, teach you how to pray for change and redemption and also be able to support you while challenging you to become what God has destined you to be. They will fill you with biblical knowledge not feelings and emotion and they need to be able to help you in the worst times in your life. Then the best part, after you survive your ordeal, you are called to become a mentor to someone else in the same place as you were (Matthew 28:18-20). Who will be your mentor? Who can you mentor in the future ?
The last thing that you need to do to move on is to Worker Harder Than Ever Before to restore yourself, your life and your credibility. For me the hardest time in the world was the early mornings and the evenings. In the mornings, I used to make the kids lunches and breakfast and then take them to school every day. I went from that to the quietest house in the world. The change was horrible and I would not wish it on my enemies. The evenings were not much better and sometimes even worse. That was when I would do football practices or homework and then maybe a nighttime swim in our gorgeous pool. That was horrible to be ripped away from that with no warning. Thankfully my mentor knew that would be the case. He pushed me to get involved in bible studies, evening church services, networking groups, chamber of commerce and more keeping my schedule as jacked full as possible. This kept my eyes on God, not the things around me that I can’t control and that would bring me down. The mentor built me back to the man I was supposed to be at first, and then time alone allowed me to build back relationships, pray for those who were against me, and build my business back post-covid. What a true blessing in disguise. God is good all the time and all the time God is good!
In summary, God can do anything he wants. I can assure you that He does not desire for you to be part of a broke family or to have dissention in your marriage or personal life(2 Corinthians 13:11, 1 John 1:9, Matthew 19:6, Ephesians 4:32, 1 Corinthians 7:10, 1 Peter 5:10-1). But in this world, we get free will and people choose to do what they fell serves them the best because they don’t think they can forgive or that the road to recovery is too hard. Because this is true, you need to prepare to “move on”. If you can accomplish these things above, you will be able to proceed if God works a miracle in your life or be able to survive starting over! Remember that God carries us in the worst times of our life and that is why there looks to be only one set of footprints!
2 Corinthians 13:11
Final Greetings
11 Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice! Strive for full restoration, encourage one another, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you.
