because it is ok to regret
There is an order to learning. A step by step of understanding one thing so that it can prepare you to naturally flow into another. When learning to read you start first with the letters. Once you understand what letters are, you begin to learn their names, and then their sounds, and then that those letters and sounds make up words. Next you would begin to learn word families, those groups of words that share sounds. Sight words then begin to get introduced and after you start to throw in different. more complicated blends and digraphs and so on and so forth. The point is you don´t begin reading by starting with the complicated exceptions to the English language. You start small and simply and then build on.
You could take pretty much any topic or any skill and see this same pattern. You start with the big picture of what it even is that you are going to begin learning and then you lay the foundations and build and build and build and as that knowledge grows you can begin to fine tune it, pick out those exceptions, and understand how the intricacies work and why they work that way.
Our walk with God is the same way. He sets first those oh so beautiful foundations of the Gospel and asks us, before we understand any of those intricacies, to enter into relationship with Him. Our entrance into the body of Christ by submitting to our Savior is not the conclusion, it is the beginning. It is the ground zero from which everything else is built.
Apparently I am in a season of fine tuning. In my life recently, language, or at least the meaning of the words we speak, is being fine tuned. And because it is what is happening in my heart lately, it is what I desire to share with you. Just this week I read a sentence that said, ¨the understood meaning is the answer you get back.¨ It took me a minute or two to really get what it meant and came away with the thought that no matter what I say and what I intend for it to mean, the understanding another person got is reflected in their response. And these two sides might not always be the same. In fact, many an argument has happened because these two sides are often not the same.
But I digress. My insecurity and fear of being misunderstood often reflects itself in long explanations and introductions. If you are already tired of reading, grab yourself a snack because thoughts are flowing and I do not want you to miss this subtle, but significant understanding of the intricacies of one word. Regret.
You, like me, may have had a conversation with another where the statement ¨I have no regrets.¨ or ¨I don´t regret anything because it made me who I am.¨ was uttered. I, being a person who lived life for a long time comparing myself to others, would shudder when I heard these words. The reason being because I had regrets. In fact I regretted a TON! Why oh why, I would think to myself, were others able to get past things so quickly, to not worry about bad choices they had made. Why do they have no regrets while I could make a lengthy list. Now, let me stop and say, that I understood the concept of forgiveness, and that my sins were as far as the east from the west, and if that is not something you know and understand let´s have that conversation! What I mean in this case of regretting involves the hindsight. The looking back and thinking, ¨Dang, I wish I hadn´t done that.¨ or more simply, ¨I wish that hadn´t happened.¨
It bothered me for years, literally YEARS, as I tried to sort through why you shouldn´t regret things when our lives are full of difficult situations we´ve endured and choices we´ve made until finally God spoke through His Spirit in the corners of my heart and let me know it´s ok to regret. In fact maybe we should do it more often. As long as it brings us to Him.
You see, regret is a big part of our story. A big part of the reason I write to you today. In our history, mine and my husband´s, is a situation that we regret. That we wish would have never happened. That we both look back on and think ¨Dang, I wish I/he hadn´t done that.¨ And it´s not just a big part of our story. It´s a big part of stories throughout the bible.
I´m pretty sure Sarah regretted handing her maidservant over to Abraham in an attempt to fulfill God´s prophesy of having a child. I´m pretty sure David regretted sleeping with his friend´s wife and then having him killed to cover it up. I´m pretty sure Jonah regretted running in the opposite direction as he was floating around in the belly of a fish for three days and then was vomited up on the shore. I´m pretty sure Peter regretted denying Jesus three times over after promising hours early he would never even think about doing so.
But, guess what came out of that regret? Repentance. David called out to God in Psalm 51 begging Him for mercy and a clean heart. Jonah 2 tells us from inside that fish Jonah called upon the Lord and he answered Him in his distress. We see in Luke 22 that Peter went out and wept bitterly and was later, after Jesus' resurrection, given the opportunity to profess his love three times instead.
The thing is, even though it seems good and mature to say that whatever you have gone through has brought you to where you are today, it´s actually leaving out an integral part, actually the most important part. Just like not using the statement ¨it´s a small world¨ like we talked about weeks ago giving credit to the situation is to omit where the true transformation comes from. It´s not the what, it´s the Who.
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who[a] have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28
My youth leader quoted this verse at least 15 times every Sunday. OK, maybe that´s a slight exaggeration, but He quoted it a lot. And I am so glad he did, because it has been a part of me from a very young age. Coming up in moments, even when not consciously thought, reminding me that it is God. It is always God.
When I look back in regret at my words, my responses, my actions, it is God that causes me to repent and works out the good anyway. When I move forward in faith, it is God who works that future for good. When I use my hands and my words for another, it is God who takes them in His hands and turns my filthy rags into good.
Friends, it is ok to regret, it is ok to look and think ¨man, I wish I hadn´t done that, I wish I hadn´t said that.¨ However, it is not ok to dwell in it and it is not ok to not believe that our God, your divine Creator who holds you and your entire story in His all powerful and all knowing hand, will turn it all into good. Buechner said, ¨This is the world. Beautiful and Terrible things happen. Don´t be afraid.¨ We should not be afraid, because we know Who has us. We know Who is with us. We know Who is working for us. That regret is ok, but it must draw you to Him, for as Philippians 2:13 says, ¨it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.¨
I am praying for you. For those life situations you have been afraid to regret because you once heard you weren´t supposed to. I am praying for you to see that regret is ok, that it can lead you to Him, and He is who takes it and works it out for good. Yes, you are being worked into who you are meant to be, but it wasn´t a situation who did it. It was the one who planned your story from the beginning and promised to bring it to completion in Him. Pray for me.