No Regrets

As I was nervous about sharing my testimony with our group of home school teens, the Spirit began to speak to me about a life of no regrets.  As Graham Cooke was talking about a very hard season where he nearly died, he said you begin to review your life and make important decisions.  One of his decisions was to live a life of no regrets.  Regret is defined as- feel sad, disappointed, repentant over something that has happened or done (especially a loss or missed opportunity).  As I was sharing my testimony and asking the teens how they had experienced "Father's Love Letter" I was impacted again by the brilliance of the Gospel.  Yet even in my own story it was believing that it was "too good to be true", there must be a catch, or somehow I of all people on the planet are uniquely unqualified to ever receive His grace.  I see why Paul says in 2 Timothy 1:7, "For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline."  Timidity, seeing ourselves as orphans, causes us to avoid things that we believe are too scary, impossible, or overwhelming.  We back up from whatever this is but because we have missed stepping into an opportunity we have regret, this regret can plague us by reminding us about what we missed out on.  Regret is pointing out the realm of living we could have entered into if we would have said "yes" to stepping into the opportunity.  Jesus told us that if we want to gain our life, then we need to lose it.  Losing our life means laying down our soul life, what our mind, will, and emotions are telling us.  Living life without regrets seems impossible, yet Jesus displayed this life as a son being dependent on the Father for what He would say and do.  Even if we seek to not have any regrets but rely on ourselves, our mind will point out the regrets.  We simply need to give ourselves without reservation fully to the Father as Jesus the Son did, surrender is the path not only to intimacy but prevents us from regrets.  Jesus lived a life without regrets because He gave Himself fully to the Father but also was singly focused on fulfilling the Father's will on the earth as it is in heaven.  The Great Commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength and then to love your neighbor as yourself.  In other words, to give yourself to fully being loved by Father and loving Him and from this to love others with the love that you have received.  True boldness does not come from ambition, being a daredevil, but truly loving without reservation or regret.  I don't believe we will get to Heaven and wish that we had withheld more of ourself from God, or loved our spouse less, or shared the Gospel less when we were prompted, or back away from giving a compliment or blessing to someone.  Honestly, if I were to think about the regrets I have because of missed opportunities I would quickly become weighed down with a huge pile on top of me.  What does God want to do with our regrets, Isaiah 61 paints a wonderful picture of making beauty for our ashes.  The ashes represent losses or regrets in our lives but we will just have ashes if we don't give them to Him so He can make something beautiful.  It seems that too much of our Christian culture is about safely dying, rather than a life of complete surrender, abandonment, passion, victory, and risk.  This honestly scares me but I think this is the point, Father wants to scare the regret right out of us so we don't have anything to lose.  Dealing with the disappointments and regrets, so we can continue to behold God's goodness is so critical for living as a son.  That we may see the goodness of God in the land of the living.

In His Goodness,
Bret