No Regrets

A couple weeks ago Sarah wanted me to watch "17 Again" with her. I am not to crazy about movies staring Zac Efron but I thought I would give it a try. The story is about how a young man made a choice back in High School that he later regretted his whole life. He choose to marry his High School sweet heart, who was pregnant, instead of pursuing basketball in college. He always blames everything in his life on that. He always says if I could just go back and change that one thing, than everything would be different. In the movie he gets a chance to go back and make the choice again. You would think that he would surely do what he had set out to do, but something else happens. He really sees that he should had been contempt in the position he was in and press forward. He really learned to live without regrets.

Well after the movie was over I was thinking to myself, "how many people still live in the past, still live with regrets?" I have talked to many people that love to blame the past, regret decisions they made in the past that still affect them today, or still love to live in the so called "glory days". They may say, "If only I had better patents", "I wish I did not get married so soon," "If I did not do that particular sin", "If that particular situation was different well then I would have a better future" etc. What they are really saying is I want to live in the past because I don't believe in my future. Sounds pretty similar to the guy in the movie and maybe your life.

Living in the past with regrets is like driving a car forward and looking at the rear view mirror. You know you are moving, because you can see what you left behind, but you can't see what is up ahead, what is on the horizon. When we do this, a lot of times we miss out on what God may have for us next. 

Philippians 3:13-15 says, "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. All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you."

Paul is really saying I no longer live in the past. Rather I press toward what God has me. He even says that those who are "mature" think like this. It is so true. Whatever has happen in the past, whether it be good or bad, it is done. We can't go back and change it. What we can change is where we are going. What are you doing today to make a difference for tomorrow? When we begin to live like that then we no longer live with regret. We begin to realize that when we make mistakes God forgives and redeems us. We are able to pick up ourselves and move forward. When we do good we realize that we can't go back to the so called "glory days", but we can make these days the most glorifying to God then they have ever been before. 

So if I can encourage you today to not get stuck in the rut of regret and a sense of wanting to live in the past. You will go nowhere looking backwards when God has so many things for you to look forward to. Take your eyes away from the rear view mirror and begin to focus on the things God has for you on the horizon. That is where you will find peace, hope, and wiliness to move forward to the better things of God. You don't have to live with regret. Like Paul said focus your life on the prize and what God has before you.