WEDNESDAY'S WORD - REGRETS - Sadell Bradley - 05/09/18 New Life Covenant Cincinnati

"My advice to other disabled people would be, concentrate on things your disability doesn't prevent you doing well, and don't regret the things it interferes with. Don't be disabled in spirit as well as physically."  Stephen Hawking    On Sunday, we were singing the David Crowder Band song, "How He Loves," and we got stuck on the lyric, "And I don't have time to maintain these regrets when I think about the way He loves us!"  It struck such a chord that we sang the phrase over and over again. You could literally feel the past washing off of people. It was a powerful moment. REGRET means to feel sad, repentant, or disappointed over something that has happened or been done before, especially a loss or missed opportunity. The Old French regreter means to 'bewail the dead,' so regret entails mourning. It is sorrow for the absence of something pleasant or someone loved. The LORD told the prophet Isaiah, "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland." (Isaiah 43:18-19) We affirmed that many of us had wasted too many hours, days, months and even years in regret over things we wished for but never got, poor choices we'd made and their affects on our loved ones, and opportunities we didn't seize. REGRET is indeed a serious waste of energy. We are deceived into thinking that  by replaying the situation over and over again in our mind, we might get a different outcome, or at least have a taste of reliving a more pleasant time.  The more and longer we do that, the more it becomes false nostalgia.  There was a reason things didn't pan out the way we'd hoped they would. Ephesians 1:11-12 often gives me comfort when I think my life has spun even out of God's control (not possible), "In Him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of Him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will, in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of His glory. God has a reason for what He's allowed and what He's prevented in my life and though those reasons are sometimes unknown to me, His providential love and care for me is not unknown. He loves me even when I don't understand His ways. So don't waste your time looking back, you're not going that way. The one that got away should have gotten away.  The opportunity you thought would be perfect but didn't pan out was evidently not for you. The place you 'should' be by now is not the place you're in for a reason. I put the meme of the statement here again on purpose. When God gave Pharaoh his dreams about the coming famine in Egypt, Joseph said the LORD told him twice because the thing was established by God. (Genesis 41:32) You letting go of regret is something that God wants to establish. We are not to dwell on the past, nor be anxious about the future. "So don't worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today's trouble is enough for today." (Matthew 6:34) Paul, formerly Saul the Jewish Pharisee, killed and persecuted many Christ followers before his encounter with Jesus on the Damascus road.  He said the one thing he learned was how to forget the things behind and reach forward to the things ahead, pressing toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. (Phil 3:13-14) This man had more regret than most of us ever will, yet he did not let his past sins, failures or indiscretions disqualify him from the life and calling God had for him. Don't let regret steal another moment from your life.

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