REGRET

BY GARY TOOLE

When I was coming up quite often I would hear old timers say, “Now, that’s water under the bridge,” or “There’s no need to cry over spilt milk.” Oh, how true those old proverbs are, because we can’t change the past, but we can change ourselves and go on for God. Amen! They say that the biggest word in the dictionary is “If.” If I had done this and if I had done that and if I had done the other, then everything would have been just perfect. Wrong! Because it don’t matter if you do everything that seems right and perfect in your sight, things are going to go wrong and life doesn’t always turn out the way we plan it, but with God’s help we must go on.

My father has always fretted himself down through the years over the fact that he wasted 15 years before he accepted the call to preach. Well, whether it’s 15 minutes, 15 days, 15 months or 15 years, it’s still as they said, “Water under the bridge.” Time you can never get back and worrying over it is just another one of satan’s distractions to cause us to look back in regret instead of looking forward in faith. Amen! Living a life of regret is just another weight to hinder our successful walk with Christ and the bible says for us to lay aside every weight and the sins that would so easily beset us and run the race with patience. You see, weights may not start out to be sin, but they can become sin.

Regret is a very negative thought that is counter productive to faith, because faith is positive. We can’t change the past but by faith we can change the future. Let us sup on the nectar of precious, wonderful sweet memories of the past and in the name of Jesus command satan to keep bitter reminders of past mistakes to himself and go on with God. Can you say amen?

PD. ADV.