Regret

We were talking about regret this morning in church.  I think we all have them/feel it (I mean, is it a noun or a verb??).  I was kind of pondering that this afternoon and looked a little at the definition:

REGRET:
1. To feel sorry, disappointed, or distressed about.

2. A feeling of disappointment or distress about something that one wishes could be different.


I think at it's most benign, that we all have awesome hindsight and often wish things could have turned out a little differently than they did.  We all have things we regret having said ... or regret having not said.  Things we wish we hadn't done.  At its hardest, there are BIG, life changing things we wish we hadn't done ...or we wish we had.  And I think living a life of "no regret" is a high calling ... if not an impossibility.  I think its one of those things, "as much as it depends on me" ... I will live a life of no regret.  But, this life doesn't depend just on us.  We cannot escape being affected by the lives and decisions of those around us. 

I fished around in Scripture and found a couple of times when God "regretted."  In Genesis 6, God regretted that He had ever made humans.  And then in I Samuel 15, He regretted making Saul king.  If the all-knowing, all-wise God has regrets, WE mere mortals are sunk.  It's not the GOD made a mistake, but that He doesn't necessarily control how the decisions of others fit into His plans or decisions.  Same can be true for us.  We cannot control how another's decisions affect us.  And yep, sometimes that means we regret.

And unlike the world, we can't just wipe everyone from the face of the earth when we regret them because of the decisions they make.  SO, where does that leave us.  I don't want to live a life marked by regret ... but I am bound to regret some decisions I make.  Our pastor, Chip said, "Concentrate on the revealed, not the regret."  I mean, that's good wisdom for everyday life ... fix our eyes on Jesus ... not our problems, not our struggles, not our weaknesses (or even our successes), not our regrets.  The only way we can run well is to fix our eyes on Jesus. 

I'm gonna have a few regrets in this life ... some of my choosing and some because I am human living with other humans, but those regrets don't get to own me if I fix my eyes on Jesus ... but as the service ended, I was reminded of this ....

I don't have time to maintain these regrets,

When I think about, the way ...

He loves us, O how He loves us, O how He loves us, O how He loves ...

(another sacred echo, perhaps)