Lenten Reflection on Regret
I know it has
happened more than once in our twenty-two years of marriage…it probably happens
more than once a month. I know it
happened yesterday. Sometimes it happens
when I am tired. Sometimes it happens
when I am frustrated with something I am working on. Sometimes it just happens because I’m a
man. Anita and I are talking, and I open
my mouth and say something, and I immediately wish that I could take those
words back. I love Anita dearly, and yet
sometimes I find myself saying things that are hurtful or cutting or simply
uncaring. It’s not that I say them
because I am intentionally trying to be mean or hurt her, I immediately regret
saying them. I completely understand
what Paul is talking about when he tells the church in Rome, “I do not understand
my own actions. For I do not do what I
want, but I the very thing I hate…For I do not do the good I want, but the evil
I do not want is what I do.”[i] Most of the time I am immediately trying to
follow those thoughtless words or comments with an apology (when I’m smart
enough to realize I’ve said something hurtful), and maybe even planning a trip
to pick up the items for her favorite meal, even after she’s forgiven me.
There are other regrets that are not that easy
to deal with—we don't feel absolved of the situation with a bowl of chicken and
dumplings and a pot of boiled okra. Those
are the regrets that can be life changing and we tend to hang on to. Maybe it
was a one-night stand. Maybe it was the
decision to pursue one career over another.
Maybe it was a decision not to finish school. Maybe it was falling off
the wagon after years of sobriety. Maybe it was verbally or physically lashing
out in anger at someone close to you in a way that leaves permanent emotional
or even physical scars. Maybe it was the decision to go further into debt for a
new computer when the old one was working just fine. Maybe it was the decision to choose one
doctor over another or one course of treatment over another.
Regret is not
necessarily a bad thing. Without regret,
we would not realize that there are things we have done that we should have
done differently. We wouldn’t feel sorry
for the wrong things we have done.
Without regret we may never realize that we need to apologize or make
amends for a wrongdoing. Without regret,
we may never realize the need to drop down to our knees and seek forgiveness
from God for the sins we have committed.
Unfortunately,
though, there are times where we let regret control our lives. We choose to live with regret as our constant
companion. We dwell on those decision
made in the past—the sins we have committed, the wrong decisions or choices we
made, though while not being sins, brought about negative consequences—and we
let those things dictate our whole lives now.
We choose to live constantly bound to or in the past. It is when we choose to live with regret
rather than moving beyond it, that we have a problem.
What do I mean?
For instance, if
we dropped out of school and regret making that decision, realizing it has
major implications for our lives. We can
choose to live with that regret, always complaining about how we can never get
anywhere because we made that choice to halt our education. We can complain about all the job
opportunities we’ll never have. We can
always feel bad about that choice and let it bring us down the rest of our lives,
or we can choose to move past regret and do something about it. Re-enroll in school. Go to community college or some other college
or university and get our GED, Bachelors, Master’s, or whatever we need to do what
God sets before us.
If we made the
decision to get drunk or get high after years of sobriety, we can live with that
regret and figure it is no use trying to do anything different and spend day
after day pouring those things into our bodies in an attempt to numb us to the
reality of what we’ve done. On the other
hand, we can let that regret spur us to seek help, join an AA group or the
like, or if we’ve been part of one, call our sponsor and start a new age of
sobriety today.
If we chose one
career over another, or even over a calling that God may have been placing on
our lives, we can choose to live in that regret, being miserable in whatever we
are doing and feel trapped in what seems like a dead-end job? We could, though, move past regret and
realize that God will let us out of the belly of the fish and give us the
opportunity to do what He has created us to do.
Then there’s the
regret of those sins that we let haunt us—one night stands, illicit
relationships, violent attacks or responses, theft, betrayal, or worse. We can choose to live with the regret and
feel that we are always unworthy, unloved, and forever condemned—we can choose
to feel stuck on a road destined for Hell.
However, we can let that regret spur us to repentance, and realize that
there is nothing that we have done that the blood of Christ cannot cleanse us from.
My brothers and
sisters, Paul new what it meant to make bad decisions. He knew what it meant to sin when he knew
what was right. Paul knew what it meant
to regret his decisions. Imagine,
though, if he had chosen to live with regret, to live stuck by the fact that he
had taken part in the stoning of Stephen and the abuse or even death of other
Christians. Paul did not, though. Rather than live with regret, bound to his
past, he opened his life up to the life renewing, life changing, life giving
grace of God and live with hope toward the future. That is why Paul writes: “It’s not that I
have already reached this goal or have already been perfected, but I pursue it,
so that I may grab hold of it because Christ grabbed hold of me for just this
purpose. Brothers and sisters, I myself
don’t think I’ve reached it, but I do this one thing: I forget about the things
behind me and reach out for the things ahead of me. The goal I pursue is the prize of God’s
upward call in Christ Jesus.”[ii]
My brothers and
sisters, let us regret our mistakes and sins, and then receive the grace of
God, leaving the regrets in the past and nailed to the cross, that we may live
redeemed lives striving for the goal of being made perfect in love through
Christ.
In the name of
the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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