Dealing With Regrets

So I felt like the Lord wanted to address regrets this morning.  I slept pretty poorly and all night long, as well as yesterday and even Friday this has been the theme running through my head.  I was asking the Lord for some verses and additional information to work with and He delivered.

Here are the primary verses He gave me - Philippians 3:13-14 NIV:

[13] "Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, [14] I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."

- and -

2 Corinthians 7:10 NIV: "Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death."

The way the Lord explained it is that regrets are used by enemy to chain us in the past.  We focus on our regrets and can't move past them.  We develop tunnel vision in certain areas and can't see the truth or life outside of the view we are focused on. Basically regrets are unforgiveness of ourselves.  It is fine to be sorrowful, even grieving of missed opportunities and missed people, but allowing these regrets to overwhelm us, or cause us to constantly think about the past, will end up running and ruining our lives.

We think "what if I had done this differently"; "why did I do this and not that"; "if only I had said this"; "if only I had loved better"; "if I would have prayed more"; "if I was more pure"; "If I hadn't said that"; etc.  These are all accusations against ourselves that the enemy injects into our mind and none of them is based on fact or reality, for what is done is done, the past is gone and unchangeable.   Thoughts like these are useful only in producing change in us, not in stirring up guilt, and self-punishment.

I didn't exactly remember the verse from 2nd Corinthians, but the Lord spoke a very similar word to me.  He said that regrets and sorrow are supposed to lead to repentance.  Repentance is learning from our mistakes, changing the way we think about and during those situations and then changing the way we act.  The Lord doesn't hold us in bondage over missed opportunities, and He doesn't expect us to act that way either.

Thinking about Paul, he definitely had a few things he could have regretted in his life, like being present at the stoning of Stephen, or jailing other Christians, but he didn't allow regret from those situations to disqualify him from what the Lord had purposed for him.  He forgot the past, was forgiven of the past, and moved forward.  In the same way, we are called to move past our mistakes and missed opportunities and press forward, having learned to think and act differently.

We will always have unfinished things to do in our life, missed opportunities, and the like, but we must learn from them, and press onward.  When Jesus Ascended to Heaven, He left a huge task completely unfinished, namely building the Church.  We must learn to depend on others, those people the Lord has brought into our lives and press forward into the things the Lord has called us to do.   We must break the chains of past regrets and unforgiveness and push into the mercy and forgiveness of the Lord.  Let us repent and change and do better the next time.  Let us leave the past in the past and press forward today, at peace with our past.

Amen!