No Regrets

“For the kind of sorrow God wants us to experience leads us away from sin and results in salvation. There’s no regret for that kind of sorrow.” (2 Corinthians 7:10a NLT)

As you view your life, what do you most regret? Was it something you did that you now wish you hadn’t done? Or was it something you didn’t do that you now wish you had? Personally, two things jump to the forefront of my mind. First, when I was in college, I was invited to a party that a very beautiful girl I’d been wanting to meet was going to be. I chose not to go because I had no confidence that she would ever be interested in me. I still wish I’d gone.

The second scenario involves something I did that I knew even then I should never have done, and I will likely never know the damage I did to my life and others. Though I know the Lord has forgiven me, I live with the knowledge that I chose to do something that was clearly wrong. Thankfully, through the Lord’s forgiveness, I’ve moved beyond that regret.

Godly sorrow doesn’t bemoan the fact we’ve sinned, we allow it to lead us to repentance that, by God’s grace, will help us to avoid that sin and any other sin of that type in the future. Sin not only separates us from God, but others who are affected by our disobedience. Regrets aren’t typically neutral as we ponder them.

They’re either toxic, moving us more closely to their evil draw, or they so repulse us we can almost literally throw up. Do you hate your sin? I’m learning to. What does that mean? It means I find it much easier to hate the sin in someone else than in myself. It’s hard when the person looking back at you in the mirror is the cause of your sin’s disgust.

However, the more closely I walk with the Lord the easier it is to hate my sin, not only for what it does to and in me, but because it grieves my Master. When I was young, I never wanted to disappoint my dad. Much of the time I felt I could never please my mom, but my dad was much easier to love and like. I enjoyed being with him and many of the patterns I now have in my life I learned from my dad.

He taught me to pay attention to detail when cleaning a car, my shoes, in living my life in general. That’s been helpful in my walk with the Lord as I’ve sought to navigate what it means to be a man of God. I’m less prone to let sin slide, keeping short accounts with God, in terms of my need to seek forgiveness and to turn from my sin.

I’ve spent a lot of hours over the years sitting by the bedsides of dying people. Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon for someone I perceived as living very close to God, being tormented with fear and doubt on their deathbed. It’s as if they feel they have unfinished business they wished they’d taken care of.

Often it centered on their uncertainty as to whether they’d done enough to deserve to go to heaven. That’s a fear I don’t have. You know why? Because I know I haven’t! But the good news is, I know who has! The songwriter said it well when she penned the words to the well-known hymn: “Jesus paid it all, All to Him I owe; Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow.”

Whatever your regrets, bring them to the Cross. Lay them at the Savior’s feet and allow Him to show you how to live a clean, wholesome, and fruitful life to His honor and fame. I love the words of Jacob Knapp: “No one regrets, at the hour of death, that he had felt too much, given too much, or done too much for Christ, or to save souls.”

Any regrets? Take them to the only One who can heal and turn them into triumph.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊