Live life with no regrets. It makes a great feel good slogan for life. Live your present life so that you won’t regret it. That sounds like a plan. I’m going to live today so that tomorrow I won’t regret it. That bases our today on us and what we do.
God told me one day that I needed to stop regretting. My mind immediately went to the phrase “Live life with no regrets.” To my surprise, God said “Not your understanding of that phrase. I don’t want you to regret the past.” What does that even mean?
We make mistakes. There are decisions I’ve made, that I want to kick myself for and say, “I wish I hadn’t done that.” I thought I was being all Godly by kicking myself for my mistakes and for shaming myself. Maybe if I wish I hadn’t done it, God will accept me.
God uses everything for our good, but He can’t use my screw ups. Really? How do we actually buy that. When God says everything , He means everything, not everything minus my mistakes. So when I sinned yesterday. That’s in the past. I don’t regret that anymore. I don’t shame myself for it. I admit I screwed up, I don’t deny that, but I acknowledge that regretting it doesn’t change anything. I’ve been redeemed through Jesus and I don’t have to focus on my failures. In fact my failure has been redeemed and God has used it for something good. So when I focus on my failure I miss the good that God has brought out of it. Our performance has no affect on our God, so why should we focus our thoughts on our performance.
That is selfish to focus on ourselves. Let go of the idea that our performance is ultimate and realize that our God is ultimate.
Live a life with no regrets. Not because we don’t make regrettable mistakes, but because our regrettable mistakes don’t hold us, our God does.
