Moving On

Recently, Barbara Walters of the 20/20 television program interviewed former U.S. Secretary of State and retired military commander, General Colin Powell. As most of you know, it was Colin Powell who presented a strong case before the United Nations detailing how Iraq had been hiding weapons of mass destruction. Based on his information and the unrestrained determination of the Allies to oust Saddam Hussein from power, war was declared on Iraq to bring a change of government. Unfortunately, the information that Powell used turned out to be wrong, and as he said in the interview with Barbara Walters, this “would be a permanent ‘blot’ on his record.

To quote from the text of the interview in The Toronto Star on the following day, Powell was asked “how painful this was for him.” He replied, “’It was painful. It’s painful now.’ Asked how he felt upon learning that he had been misled about the accuracy of intelligence on which he relied, Mr. Powell said, ‘Terrible.’ He added that it was ‘devastating’ to learn later the information he had was unreliable.” Later in the interview with Barbara Walters, Mrs. Powell was asked how she felt about what they went through, and she simply said, “We have put it behind us, and we have moved on.” Herein lies a secret to dealing with issues from the past: We must move on!

I realize, of course, that this is easier said than done. How can a person move on when he feels like he has deceived a nation? How can a person move on when a terrible tragedy has struck his or her life? How can a person move on when things may have happened that no human explanation can be given? Can people really get on with their lives when bad things have happened in their past? Isaiah 43:18 gives us a starting point from which to move on. Quoting the Lord, the prophet Isaiah says, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past” (NIV). The answer is clear, DO NOT DWELL ON THE PAST! As the apostle Paul says, “I am focusing all my energies on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead…” (Phil. 3:3, NLT). Of course, all of this requires a decision of the will and also a fresh infusion of God's unlimited grace. For with God's grace, we can move on into the better things of today and tomorrow!