GET RID OF REGRET
Have you ever made a decision that you immediately regretted? The kind that causes your stomach to drop right down into your toes? Regrets irritate our souls and give little-to-no sympathy. Perhaps you have a personal regret coming to mind as you read these words—you’ve felt it following you like a shadow. No matter how hard you try, you can’t shake it; you wake up every morning thinking about it.
I have a sense that for many, your past has begun to play a game of following the leader right into your future. Before you know it, you’ve ended up in the whirlpool of shame and are drowning in thoughts like, “Will I ever be okay?” or, “Will life ever be the same?”
I know in my life I have numerous reasons I could live with regret and fall into the whirlpool of shame.
I have a sense that for many, your past has begun to play a game of following the leader right into your future. Before you know it, you’ve ended up in the whirlpool of shame and are drowning in thoughts like, “Will I ever be okay?” or, “Will life ever be the same?”
I know in my life I have numerous reasons I could live with regret and fall into the whirlpool of shame.
I’d propose that regret is the hurdle that keeps you from your divine destiny, inhibits you from royal refinement, and locks you in the limited box of your past. It has one clear, yet seemingly hidden agenda, that is to keep you from being the rightful recipient of the redeeming love of God that is given to you regardless of what regret says about you.
The truth is, there is nothing that can disqualify you from receiving the open invitation into the redemption power of God.
What I am getting at is, the invitation into the love of God is the very thing that grants access to seeing the redeeming power of God on display as He crafts the ashes of the past into a timeless masterpiece of beauty. Let me be cle ar, when we burrow in the shame of our past, we allow it to entangle our identity, and limit the manifest beauty of God being displayed through our lives. In this case, we become defined by our regret rather than refined by the redeeming power of God.
In this week’s video blog, I talk more about how our past should refine us but not define us.
In a nutshell:
- Regret undermines our life in God.
- We separate ourselves from the love of God when we live with regret.
- When I look back at my past I create crooked paths toward the future.
- It is important how we relate to our past failures so that yesterday’s pain doesn’t get pulled into today’s journey.
- Often we are afraid of the ashes and therefore we don’t embrace the beauty.
- God is the master of taking ashes and making beauty out of them.
- Flawed and false vows are ways we perpetuate regret in our lives.
- I can only be loved to the depth I can be hurt.
- Love rewrites our history.
WHY TRIALS SHOULD BE CONSIDERED A JOY
How do we consider trials a joy? If you’re like me, you’re probably wondering what that practically looks like? Do you suddenly wake up with a smile on your face rejoicing and thanking God for the adversity in front of you? Or run through the streets celebrating the challenge and frustration? That feels as opposite as day from night and winter from summer!
T he challen ge is that we often hold fast to the regret and failures of our lives with tight fists. When the reality is, through the redeeming power of God, our failures contain the very ability to mold us into our royal identity. Yet still, the Lord is a Craftsman and a Redeeming Architect, creating beauty from ashes, laying the strong foundation necessary for His co-heirs to stand on, taking each challenge to produce something beautiful, and establishing our royal identity as His sons and daughters.
Today I pray that you would know in the depths of your soul that your assurance rests in the redeeming nature of God. With each trial you face, the Lord is forging you into your noble identity. As your faith is tested, perseverance is built. This is why trials are a joy in the Kingdom of God! Granted, this may not just happen overnight. However, we begin to see the manifest beauty and very nature of God on display in the midst of each challenge, we see refinement transform our lives, and the expectation of what miracle He will create from the mess begins to be our focus when trials arise.
I want to challenge you this week to look at your failures through the lens of God, and begin to view them through His lens of love. Love rewrites history!
