Regrets. Starting Over. Regrets Again.
Regrets. Starting over. Regrets again.
I’ve heard people proclaim they have no regrets. Frankly, I don’t believe them (unless they are moving toward narcissism). It’s popular to state that you have no time for regrets or that you don’t regret anything you’ve done, even the mistakes, because they’ve all gotten you where you are now. I get the sentiment but it doesn’t really make sense.
Do you think that’s wise thinking for the child abuser? The narcissistic leader who led her people to ruin? The drunk driver who took the life of innocent passengers but survived?
“We know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28 ESV), but that doesn’t mean everything that happened is good. AND, this verse is speaking of those who love Him. It is specific to us, not to all humanity.
We all have regrets– or we should, at least, because we’ve all done wrong. Paul wrote in Romans 3:10-12 ESV,
“None is righteous, no, not one;
no one understands;
no one seeks for God.
All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
no one does good,
not even one.”
Our habit of making selfish, sinful, unwise choices results in undesireable consequences that should help us regret those decisions.
Many of us, at least inwardly, do acknowledge this feeling of regret, the desire to start over, to begin again.
The desire to go back to the beginning is so universal it should lead us to ask why so many experience it. If we’re meant to toss off regret and simply move forward, why do we keep trying to start again?
You see it in society’s builders and deconstructors alike. They take different paths and use different language but they’re all trying to return to the genesis in order to begin again. Fresh. New. Changed.
I think it’s because none of us began at the start of the story. We’ve all come in mid-way and while we were immediately engaged in the plot, we live with a persistent feeling that we’re missing vital information. We should listen to that feeling. God wrote that whisper into our lives.
You and I were born in the middle. We all had a beginning but it was further back than the day of our conception– we each started as ideas conceived in the mind of God who chose the place and precise time of our delivery into the greater story– but He injected us right into the middle.
Did He do this so we’d spend our lives with this vague sense that we don’t have all the information we need to understand the plot or to successfully find our way to a happy conclusion?
Not at all. Or maybe yes. I believe He wants us to long to start over, to want to find the beginning.
He did it precisely so we would long to start again. He did it to create in us a yearning for the information we can only find at the beginning.
We are just confused about what we’re seeking.
You see, the beginning we seek wasn’t our birth or even our conception. The beginning we crave isn’t found by restarting our marriage, our parenting, our friendships, our church, or our country.
The beginning is Jesus.
He is the Alpha and the Omega. The Beginning and the End. The First and the Last.
It means He is eternal. He is God. He was, He is, He is to come. It means He holds every key and we should want to in relationship with Him.
To understand the middle, that place where we live, we need Jesus who is the Beginning and the End.
When someone mentions that they have regrets, it isn’t wisdom for us to tell them that regret is a waste of time or energy. Instead, ask what their regrets lead them to long for– often, they’ll say, “I wish I could start over.” Or “I wish I could begin again.”
Then we can help them see that, “Ahh, your soul longs for the Alpha and the Omega. The One who is the beginning and the end.”
Do you wish our country could start over? Your church? Your career? Your family? Your life? Your soul is aching for Jesus. He is the place where we all begin and where we begin again.
Jesus.
Thoughts? I respond to every comment and reply to every email!
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