Regret

Life can get so busy, so full of all the things we need to do. It’s easy to forget what is important. Life has pulled me in many directions lately and I found myself doing just that, being caught in the tyranny of the urgent.  

As I sat down with the Lord, He so graciously began to speak to me. I heard the word in my spirit…REGRET. I was feeling so much regret for many reasons. I knew He wanted me to explore the topic, so I looked up the definition.

REGRET: to remember with a feeling of loss or sadness, to mourn. Remorse about something that one wishes could be different. Guilt or disappointment.

We have all experienced a situation that did not turn out in the way we had hoped. It’s part of life, things happen that we cannot control; people can make decisions that affect us adversely.

As I meditated on this, I found my mind wandering to the past, to things that I cannot undo or change.  I knew I should not allow my heart to dwell there or my mind to fester regret. An infected wound when not cleansed will cause more damage.

The Holy Spirit began to gently remind me to look at the past ONLY to learn from it but not to live there. The waters that have washed under the bridge of time cannot be rescued and put back in place. No re-do can change anything. It may even make the outcome worse.

Only releasing it to the work of Holy Spirit can disintegrate guilt and heal the damage. This is my work…I must release regret and embrace now. I must go forward. There is refreshing when we live in hope. Hope lets us know that we can move forward.

Ecclesiastes 3:1,4,6, says, “To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under the sun. A time to weep and a time to laugh. A time to gain and a time to lose.” Regret wants us to stay in the past…in weeping, in losing. But to be free of the past, we must decide to let it go.

My mind knows I do not have the ability to change what happened. It’s logical to understand this, but the heart longs for it to be different, to go back, to regret.

                   “Every holy resolve to obey God changes our lives profoundly.”

Resolve means to decide, to determine, to have firmness of purpose. We must resolve to go forward. Phillipians 3:13b-14 states “I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead…I press on.”

We decide to push the delete button on every mistake, every failure, every wrong done to us, and we resolve to forgive, let go, and move past it.

Jeremiah said that "God knows the plans that He has for us…to give us a future and hope.” Jer. 29;11. Our hope is not in the past with its mistakes or failures or pain, but in tomorrow with all its promises.

Isaiah told us “But forget all of that-it is nothing compared to what I am going to do. For I am about to do something new, see I have already begun….” Isaiah 43:18-19.

Leaving regret is as simple as making a choice and as difficult as actually doing it. 

Father I am praying for every person reading this. I hold gently in my hands their broken hearts that are heavy with regrets. You know each of them. Surround them with your tangible presence right now. Assure their hearts that they can make that choice now and turn from past regrets and live today in the fullness of everything you have for them.

Holy Spirit, give them the strength to move forward, forgiving, letting go and living in now. They do not do this alone because you are there. Give them the grace to choose and keep choosing today. In Jesus name…..