Life Without Regrets

The more I consider it, the more I am convinced regret has no practical benefit for those who wallow in it.  While feelings of regret can prompt us to consider our ways and draw valuable life lessons from the past we can practice, regret itself never invites us to look to the future.  Regrets chain us to a past we cannot change and all the "If only..." and "I wish..." thoughts and desires we could entertain are fantasy  the current reality rejects.  Regret is intrinsically self-focused, for it demands we be our own saviour by figuring out what we should have done.  It weaves an unrealistic image of how things could be, even ought to be, and we are to blame things did not turn out differently.  Regret can be a willful denial and rejection of God's power to redeem evil for good like we read about countless times in scripture and have also experienced ourselves.

Regret presents a mirage and lie that we alone have the power to determine our future, essentially removing God's sovereignty from the picture.  It is the true our decisions have consequences that impact the future, but we would be foolish to assume a righteous decision always has an outcome we agree is positive.  To allow what we perceive as a negative outcome to dictate what we should or could have done in the past is to trade a biblical perspective for likely a selfish one where only our decisions matter and have all the power the change our lives.  If our regret is a matter of sin, regret ought to lead us to repentance.  Once having repented of sin and put it far from us, the power regret once wielded over us is broken by Christ and we are enabled by God's grace to look to Him in the future.  Most of the time it is not sin we regret but the uncomfortable situation we find ourselves in presently we wish we had power to change.  Holding onto regret suggests we prefer to change our past behaviour and masks our need to be changed by God now.

In one sense, regret can be a personal hell we make for ourselves.  Regret is akin to perpetual mourning over the past without hope moving forward.  Having the ability to remember is a blessing from God, yet memories for those tormented in hell will cause them to be plagued with perpetual regret.  In the story Jesus told of the rich man who suffered in Sheol, he was told by Abraham in Luke 16:25, "...Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted and you are tormented."  The rich man could remember all the good things that brought him comfort in life when he could not even access a drop of water to cool his tongue.  He also was able to remember his brothers and begged Abraham to send Lazarus back to them.  He wanted Lazarus to do for him and his brothers what he had not bothered to do during his entire life.  Apart from the physical pain the previously rich man was subjected to, memories and regrets would have been part of his continual torment apart from God forever.

Paul was a man who could have saddled himself with many regrets, seeing as he persecuted Jesus and his followers before coming to Christ in faith.  Instead of doing some sort of self-imposed penance, he embraced repentance for sin and received forgiveness from Jesus.  Paul did not hide his past because it had no longer held him guilty; he did not waste energy lamenting what he could not change and Jesus would redeem.  He wrote in Philippians 3:13-14:  "Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, ¹⁴ I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."  Paul did not see himself as perfect in the past or present, and at the same time did not beat himself up over past mistakes or bask in self-congratulatory affirmation over his current state.  Failures and success were put behind him as he reached forward to a glorious future with eyes on Jesus, focused on fulfilling the call upon his life by God.  This is a posture Christians do well to maintain, for following Jesus is a life not to be regretted.