About Regrets
There are two kinds of regrets: regret for the bad things you have done, and regret for the things that you did not do—missed opportunities.
The longest-lasting regrets people have are more often the things they didn't do. In the shorter term, yes, we all have regrets about bad actions we have taken, but as the years go on, we feel more deeply the things we really wish we had done.
I tackled one of those things for myself this year. For various reasons, I have not been very happy with myself in my inability to love others the way I think I should. I am definitely a selfish creature by nature! Some time ago, I began to wonder what life would "look like" if I were somehow able to love others a little better.
I am a mom to a couple very active, enthusiastic little girls, a wife to a brilliant, good-hearted man who devotes his heart, time, and energy to many worthy endeavors, and a full-time employee in a demanding corporate work environment. Taking time to love others has been a huge challenge. Time is limited...what am I do? How might I add "love others" on top of all this?
In the If book, in a later chapter, Batterson will encourage his readers to select a word for the year—the idea is to create for yourself a focus, an ideal you can concentrate on for the year. This is a small action that can provide you with something to strive for, something to live up to. I was happy to read his "take" on it, because early this year, for the first time, I had done that. When January 2017 rolled around, I had pulled out my journal and prayed, then I wrote down the word "encourager."
You see, I might be hard-pressed to take lots of time to perform loving actions for a lot of people, but I knew with a little effort on my part, I could shift my interactions with anyone I would come in contact with and be very deliberate in offering encouraging words to them, rather than giving them heaping helpings of pain.
I have heard it said that your feelings can follow your actions. I wondered, if I made the effort to be encouraging, maybe I would find that I was actually starting to feel better about people? Maybe I would actually feel more loving towards them? I have also heard it said that praying for a person does the same thing...first you pray for the person, then you wind up feeling better about them.
Well, it's mid-October. I had prayed that God would make me an encourager this year. And to date, He has honored that! I haven’t been perfect. I definitely have had my selfish, angry, petty moments. But I have observed the Holy Spirit moving in me, in response to that prayer. If I have been able to love on people, to encourage them, it is because of His power at work in me.
I committed this aspect of my life to Him as a discipline, then I took a few hard steps to look at how I interact with others. The Holy Spirit has helped me form more positive thought patterns in regards to other people, to see the good in them, and to choose to enhance that goodness in them by verbally speaking it aloud to them. The fight against my own selfishness will go on, for sure, but if I stay the course and do not revert, this is one potential end-of-life regret that I can kiss goodbye!
Do you see how when we talk about the "if onlys," we are not necessarily talking about big, huge actions, like quitting your job or going back to school? Sometimes, the actions can be internal, more subtle. For example, maybe you start a new discipline—every morning, as you wake up, you make God the first person you say hello to. What would that do to your day? To your week? To your year? Would that make you draw closer to Him? Would that translate into an end-of-life observation, that you drew closer and closer to God every day? You, too, could then kiss an "if only" regret goodbye!
Sins of Commission vs. Sins of Omission
Batterson observes that so much of what we as a body of believers focus on are sins of commission—don't do this, don't do that. Huge portions of the Bible describe these sins and help us understand that these are things that harm our spirits and pull us away from God, who is Holy. Sins of commission hurt us, hurt God, and hurt others. We definitely regret what we've done when we sin like this.
But what about sins of omission? That is, what about the things we are called by God to do, but we deliberately do not do them?
This is a scary one for me to talk about. It's the idea that you can move along in life doing nothing wrong, but still do nothing right. These are the things that I'll lie on my deathbed and feel keenly as deep regrets...unless I do something about them.
As you and I grow in our walk with Jesus, we must be willing to fall on our faces before Him and ask Him to fulfill His purpose for us.
When we are thrown into a horrible pit of grief and pain—perhaps because of a debilitating illness, the loss of someone we love, or an act of betrayal committed against us—during those times of deepest distress, we likewise must deny ourselves and just fall on our faces before Him. We must place our lives in His hands as an act of surrender and submission.
My friend, I want you to experience His heart in this...if there is anything you are going through, you must hang on to the knowledge that God doesn't abandon you in the middle of it. Your sin of omission during the worst times of your life will be not clinging to him. It will be not believing that He loves you.
If you are going through something horrible like that...if you are in a pit, fight the urge to blame God, and instead cling to Him. Your action of deliberately grabbing ahold of God in these terrible times will make all the difference in how you recover and what your life will "look like" when you emerge from the pit.
But what about when times are good? When you are just going along, enjoying life, and, as I stated earlier, not doing anything wrong?
You still must fall down before Him in His sovereignty, asking Him, petitioning Him to reveal His purpose in your life. He has a purpose for you. He has good things He wants you to do. You can just go along and live your life and never concern yourself with any deeper purpose the Lord may have, but at the end of your life, you may look upon your inaction to seek Him as a deep regret.
Do you want to kiss that "if only" regret goodbye? I keep repeating this, but I'll say it again...
Fall on your face before Him. Ask Him to reveal His purpose to you. Draw as close to Him as you possibly can...do not hold Him at arm's length! That would be an "if only" regret, your sin of omission.
Once you have surrendered to Him, then if He asks you to do something, do it.
OK, I said this one was scary for me to talk about, because I say all this, and I have no idea what He might call me to tomorrow. I sometimes feel like I have to force myself to trust Him. What if He takes my fondest dreams away from me and instead wants me to do something painful or hard? What if He wants me to go through something difficult in order to reveal a greater purpose for me?
How am I supposed to trust in Him? How can I achieve that kind of rock-solid faith? I don't want to go through life waiting for the other shoe to drop!
This is why we established our premises at the start of this study. God is all-knowing. God is love. The Bible is true. The Bible says that Jesus is our Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6). Jesus gives us perfect peace, no matter what is going on. We take every fear to Him. Let me show you what the Bible says:
Isaiah 26:2 (NIV)
You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you.
2 Corinthians 10:5 (NIV)The Holy Spirit within us gives us peace and fills us with His power to take captive our fear and replace it with our faith. It is through a close walk with Jesus and asking the Holy Spirit to give us His power that we become people of solid faith.
We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
This....this!!!! This is what is going to head off any "if only" regrets. This is what is going to enable us to go where the Lord calls us, and do what the Lord calls us to do. Get ahold of this, saints!
There's a story in the Old Testament that I think of sometimes when I feel like I need to get ahold of some aspect of God, some principle of life...
In Genesis 32:22-32 there's this very weird story about Jacob. Jacob was not necessarily a super-righteous guy. He had done things in his past that weren’t so great, like conspiring with his mother to deceive his father and receive the blessing that belonged to his brother Esau. Esau had been so angry that he had planned to kill him, but Jacob had run away and stayed away for years with his father-in-law Laban. A whole lot of stuff went on during those years (Genesis 25-35 tells the full story of Jacob), and there came a time when Jacob took all of his family members and possessions, his flocks, his servants—everything—and left Laban. Laban was not happy about that at all, so Jacob had reason to be worried about Laban coming after him now, too.
Now Jacob was taking the whole kit-n-caboodle and was getting ready to go back and see Esau, and he was a little concerned about how that was going to go, too. At this point, we can see that Jacob is probably one exhausted individual. Jacob was an aggressive character whose name essentially meant "deceiver." His dealings with his family hadn't always been on the up-and-up, and now he was probably pretty darn stressed about what was both before him and behind him.
Jacob sent everyone on ahead of him and was spending the night alone, when the Bible says, "a man" wrestled with him throughout the night:
When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man.
Then the man said, "Let me go, for it is daybreak."
But Jacob replied, "I will not let you go unless you bless me."
The man asked him, “What is your name?”
“Jacob,” he answered.
Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”
Jacob said, “Please tell me your name.”
But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there.
So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”Jacob wrestled with God! Tough, aggressive Jacob refused to let go until he got a blessing. And God gave it to him.
Our God is all-powerful, so why does it say that "the man" could not overpower Jacob? I think God was testing Jacob's mettle. It sounds to me like God purposely put a physical limitation on Himself so that He could verify how stalwart this character Jacob really was. Not only that, but maybe God knew that Jacob needed to see it in himself that night. Jacob must have picked up on this, because he stubbornly refused to let go until he received a blessing. It was during this wrestling match with God that the Lord:
- Tested Jacob.
- Injured him.
- Blessed him with a new name, and thus, a new purpose.
Matthew 7:7 (NIV)Jesus even told a parable about the stubborn person who, in the middle of the night, refused to stop knocking on his friend's door until the man got up and gave him what he asked for:
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.
Luke 11:8 (ESV)Friends, this can be scary and hard...we have to dig in, grab ahold of God, and show our mettle. Don't let go of Him until He reveals your purpose. He develops us in this way. Yes, we might suffer in the process—maybe worse than a hip out of joint—but we must trust Him enough to continue to hang on tight, knowing that the blessing of His purpose is coming.
I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his impudence he will rise and give him whatever he needs.
Remember what Jesus said:
Matthew 7:9-11 (NIV)God will always give us the very best. If we ask Him to reveal His purpose for us and bless us in it, then we can totally trust how He goes about doing it. He loves us deeply and has in store for us the very best He can offer. Actively petition Him for it, and as we have said previously, we can kiss that "if only" regret goodbye!
Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!
In the next post, we will talk more about "if only" regrets and more about the good things God has for us!
Prayer
Dear Lord, I continue to lift up to you the readers of this post. I pray that they would be encouraged by it, and that they would eagerly desire to seek Your purpose for their lives. May Your Word penetrate their hearts. I pray that they will draw ever closer to You and be blessed by Your promises and Your Word. Go before them, Father, and do great and mighty works in them. May they seek Your wisdom and Your power for every circumstance they face. I ask this in the mighty name of Jesus, Amen!"
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