No Regerts
Have you seen the Snickers commercial with the tattoo? A man gets a tattoo meant to say “No Regrets” but it is misspelled and says “No Regerts” - something that will generate instant regret.
In the course of my day job, we have a department meeting every Tuesday which is, in large part, someone in IT leading a devotional. This is one of the huge benefits of working for a ministry - imagine a corporate setting where they recognize that Christ comes before business. One of our project managers led a devotional talking about regret - and this subject has stuck with me for a few weeks ever since because it has become clear to me that not only do we misunderstand our own feelings when it comes to regret, but we tend to take actions that simply make things worse. So is regret really a bad thing?
Paul writes in Philippians 3 the following: “But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.” Paul takes special care to mention that he does not focus on the past, but rather the future - the mission - the goal. To dwell on past mistakes and past decisions will simply cause us to stress about one more thing in a long line of things over which we have zero control - we cannot change the past, yet we worry about it as though there can be a more positive result if we just worry hard enough.
I know I am not alone in this scenario: lying in bed after a long day, dog tired, but your brain will not stop replaying in your head every stupid, cringy thing you have ever done in your life, thereby keeping you from rest and building up anxiety and worry over something that in all reality, everyone else involved has likely forgotten long ago. We dwell on shortcomings, errors, and places where we have missed the mark - the more embarrassing, the better. Sometimes this can cause us to step back from taking a risk, or believe we are not capable of doing what we are meant to do - and this is a problem.
Yet, I submit that regret is, in itself, not a bad thing. How we use regret - how it affects us - this is where it can be positive or negative. In C.S. Lewis’ book The Screwtape Letters where one seasoned demon is writing to his inexperienced nephew with advice on how to best corrupt humans, he writes the following about human emotions, citing regret as an example: “To decide what the best use of it is, you must ask what use the Enemy wants to make of it, and then do the opposite.” If regret is a tool used by the enemy, we have to consider that it is a tool which can also be used by God for good - and here is where each of us needs to step back and consider our own responses to life.
What good is regret? For me, there is no better teacher. We are meant to learn from our mistakes - to grow and mature so that we do not repeat them. Some mistakes are simply a correction - a quick lesson to take with us and make us better in small but measurable ways. Some mistakes impact us profoundly - often leading to lasting regret even after we have long paid the consequences. That is a mistake I am not going to make again (one can hope, anyway.) Regret can help us to remember what we have learned - and why we learned it - thus cementing our understanding and allowing us to really grow.
When we forget our mistakes - forget the consequences, and live entirely without regret - we can also forget the lesson. Remember during the pandemic when there was this major push to tear down, destroy, and rename any monument in our country that pointed back to pre-Civil War days and slavery? People said the memory was offensive, as if we were glorifying the actions that were memorialized. Yet many of us, Christians in particular, recognized that many of these monuments served to remind us of past mistakes - not to make us feel shame, but to allow us to remember the lessons learned and ensure that those same mistakes are not repeated.
Where regret becomes a problem is when we dwell on things that cannot be changed. I recently counseled someone who had made a major mistake quite recently - and he is currently drowning in his regret over this sin. His regret is so fresh and so severe that it is impacting his entire life - his relationships, his work performance, his ministry - and it has caused him to question his worthiness to continue to serve. And I’ll be honest - it was a big mistake - there are major consequences with which he is already dealing. Yet for him, the regret shines through more than the consequences themselves - he is torturing himself far more than anything in this world is capable of dealing.
Maybe you are dealing with that. For many, regret is a major factor in keeping them from coming to Christ to begin with. For believers, it can be debilitating, as we all know that when it comes to major sin, we know better - and that is supposed to be reflected in our character, right? After all, believers never get caught up in financial sin or sexual sin or addiction or some other scandal, right? And when we do, we often feel like we are too far gone - too far away from God and His grace.
But we know better. We know better, yet we dwell. Paul also writes in Romans that nothing can separate us from God - not death, life, angels, demons, past, present, powers, height, depth, or any other thing created - you know, except for that one mistake, right?
Paul’s lesson to the Pilippians is not to forget the past - the past teaches us who we are, who God is in our lives, and shows us when and where we have strayed off course, that we might avoid doing it again, at least in that specific way. Yet to focus on regret is to steal the joy of life - to take away from the blessings of today. Healthy regret drives us to repentance and a right pursuit of Godliness. And since sanctification is an ongoing process throughout our full lives, we will do plenty more things in life to regret later.
The point? Learn from your past, but do not let it steal from your present. Your regret is not a tattoo imprinted on your body forever - your sin is wiped away like that tattoo could never be. You are forgiven and made to be in right standing before God when you repent and turn from your sin - and that sufficient grace should inform our decisions in life, not our “regerts.”
In the course of my day job, we have a department meeting every Tuesday which is, in large part, someone in IT leading a devotional. This is one of the huge benefits of working for a ministry - imagine a corporate setting where they recognize that Christ comes before business. One of our project managers led a devotional talking about regret - and this subject has stuck with me for a few weeks ever since because it has become clear to me that not only do we misunderstand our own feelings when it comes to regret, but we tend to take actions that simply make things worse. So is regret really a bad thing?
Paul writes in Philippians 3 the following: “But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.” Paul takes special care to mention that he does not focus on the past, but rather the future - the mission - the goal. To dwell on past mistakes and past decisions will simply cause us to stress about one more thing in a long line of things over which we have zero control - we cannot change the past, yet we worry about it as though there can be a more positive result if we just worry hard enough.
I know I am not alone in this scenario: lying in bed after a long day, dog tired, but your brain will not stop replaying in your head every stupid, cringy thing you have ever done in your life, thereby keeping you from rest and building up anxiety and worry over something that in all reality, everyone else involved has likely forgotten long ago. We dwell on shortcomings, errors, and places where we have missed the mark - the more embarrassing, the better. Sometimes this can cause us to step back from taking a risk, or believe we are not capable of doing what we are meant to do - and this is a problem.
Yet, I submit that regret is, in itself, not a bad thing. How we use regret - how it affects us - this is where it can be positive or negative. In C.S. Lewis’ book The Screwtape Letters where one seasoned demon is writing to his inexperienced nephew with advice on how to best corrupt humans, he writes the following about human emotions, citing regret as an example: “To decide what the best use of it is, you must ask what use the Enemy wants to make of it, and then do the opposite.” If regret is a tool used by the enemy, we have to consider that it is a tool which can also be used by God for good - and here is where each of us needs to step back and consider our own responses to life.
What good is regret? For me, there is no better teacher. We are meant to learn from our mistakes - to grow and mature so that we do not repeat them. Some mistakes are simply a correction - a quick lesson to take with us and make us better in small but measurable ways. Some mistakes impact us profoundly - often leading to lasting regret even after we have long paid the consequences. That is a mistake I am not going to make again (one can hope, anyway.) Regret can help us to remember what we have learned - and why we learned it - thus cementing our understanding and allowing us to really grow.
When we forget our mistakes - forget the consequences, and live entirely without regret - we can also forget the lesson. Remember during the pandemic when there was this major push to tear down, destroy, and rename any monument in our country that pointed back to pre-Civil War days and slavery? People said the memory was offensive, as if we were glorifying the actions that were memorialized. Yet many of us, Christians in particular, recognized that many of these monuments served to remind us of past mistakes - not to make us feel shame, but to allow us to remember the lessons learned and ensure that those same mistakes are not repeated.
Where regret becomes a problem is when we dwell on things that cannot be changed. I recently counseled someone who had made a major mistake quite recently - and he is currently drowning in his regret over this sin. His regret is so fresh and so severe that it is impacting his entire life - his relationships, his work performance, his ministry - and it has caused him to question his worthiness to continue to serve. And I’ll be honest - it was a big mistake - there are major consequences with which he is already dealing. Yet for him, the regret shines through more than the consequences themselves - he is torturing himself far more than anything in this world is capable of dealing.
Maybe you are dealing with that. For many, regret is a major factor in keeping them from coming to Christ to begin with. For believers, it can be debilitating, as we all know that when it comes to major sin, we know better - and that is supposed to be reflected in our character, right? After all, believers never get caught up in financial sin or sexual sin or addiction or some other scandal, right? And when we do, we often feel like we are too far gone - too far away from God and His grace.
But we know better. We know better, yet we dwell. Paul also writes in Romans that nothing can separate us from God - not death, life, angels, demons, past, present, powers, height, depth, or any other thing created - you know, except for that one mistake, right?
Paul’s lesson to the Pilippians is not to forget the past - the past teaches us who we are, who God is in our lives, and shows us when and where we have strayed off course, that we might avoid doing it again, at least in that specific way. Yet to focus on regret is to steal the joy of life - to take away from the blessings of today. Healthy regret drives us to repentance and a right pursuit of Godliness. And since sanctification is an ongoing process throughout our full lives, we will do plenty more things in life to regret later.
The point? Learn from your past, but do not let it steal from your present. Your regret is not a tattoo imprinted on your body forever - your sin is wiped away like that tattoo could never be. You are forgiven and made to be in right standing before God when you repent and turn from your sin - and that sufficient grace should inform our decisions in life, not our “regerts.”
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