I used to think I could make it all the way through life without regrets.  I was kidding myself.  Everyone has regrets of some kind.  Even if they are only little regrets, they still exist.  We look back and wish we would have done something different, that we would have done something at all, or that we hadn’t done something.  Either way, we envision what life would be like, if only….  It’s funny because the truth is we can never know if we had done something differently, if things would have really turned out different or turned out the way we dream that they should have.  For all we know things could have been worse.  Ironically, while we waste time craning our necks to look back at the past, we are only stopping ourselves from being present and more successful in the here and now.  

I am not saying you should never self-evaluate in order to avoid making the same mistake over and over. That’s a wise thing to do.  I am saying that if you can’t change it, you shouldn’t let it trap you.  It easy to go down the rabbit hole of regrets and get lost never to return.  Here is the thing, all we can really change is now.  So, make sure you are intentional about the choices you are making today.  Remember, that you will make mistakes so if things aren’t what you expected them to be, free yourself from thinking things would have been different or could have been if only, and deal with what is.  

Free yourself from the deception of the “what if” and focus on “what is.”  Sure, regrets are a part of life because you will have those what if thoughts, but they don’t need to become chains around you.  You can feel it and release it.  Learn from the past but not live like you can change it. You can’t. Learn from it but don’t live in it, as if it’s your own personal prison cell.  It’s gone and we must move forward instead of being trapped by things we cannot affect or change.    

I am reminded of Lot’s wife, we don’t even know her name, but we know what she did.  She looked back and was destroyed because of it.  She wanted her past more than her future.  One of the scariest parts of life is looking ahead and being brave, and intentional.  The hardest part of life is living.  Yet you should put your energy into actively living in the now and you will have much fewer “regrets” at the end.  Did you catch that?  I didn’t say you wouldn’t have any, but the ones you have won’t hold you in bondage because their chains never had a chance to enslave you.  It’s like Paul says in Philippians 3 verses 12 to 14, “Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 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, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. “ 

I challenge you today to live forward, looking ahead, be free from the bondage of regrets (this doesn’t mean regret free, but instead not bound up by them), and know that you are going toward Christ. He’s the goal  So why would you waste your time looking back, when Christ is your goal, and he is ahead beckoning you onward.