Prime Time for the Redemption of Regret - Part I
Mark E. Haskins
December 23, 2024
I love Gordon. He is retired, lives down the road about eighty miles, and is a longtime friend. We periodically have lunch to reconnect. Our conversations roam the varied terrain of family, hobbies, travels, and career memories. We always end up, however, talking about the Lord. It is sweet fellowship—friends sharing life and encouraging one another.
Of late, it is not clear that Gordon has found his “retirement legs.” I think that is true for many Christian men. He’s boarded the appealing and sea-worthy vessel called Retired . . . it has left the dock . . . and he is struggling to get his “sea legs” under him. “I’m not doing enough for the kingdom,” or “I have all this time and too many days go by with no discernable value,” are sincere laments that are softly spoken between his sips of iced tea. He also puts voice to something else: “I have so many regrets. I can’t get motivated to engage in anything new or major. My regrets just keep coming to mind.” His retirement has not yet blossomed into an encore.
There are many stories of regret. If the truth be told, we all harbor some. Like gray hair, they seem to come with age. “As AK-47 inventor Mikhail Kalashnikov neared death, the man whose gun became one of the world's most prolific killing machines wrestled with guilt [regret] from the countless lives taken with his invention, telling a church leader. . . ‘my soul aches; it is unbearable. . . The longer I live. . . the more I wonder why the Lord allowed man to have the devilish desires of envy, greed and aggression.’"1 Big or small, lingering or episodic, it does not matter. For the one held captive by regrets, they ring true, they torment, and even debilitate.
Dear Gordon, dear Mikhail, dear lovers of the Lord, not only have our sins been forgiven (Ephesians 1: 7, I John 1: 9), they are not remembered by our Heavenly Father (Jeremiah 31: 34, Hebrews 8: 12, 10: 17). Thank goodness! If He has forgiven and forgotten our failings, we can too, freeing our memory from paralyzing and condemning regret!
Regret takes root in many fertile fields. We have all heard of regrets such as: “If I had only been a better father. . . a better husband.” “I wish I had been more generous and gracious to my employees.” “I wish I had not lost my temper so often and so easily.” “My unfaithfulness separated my family.” “Under financial pressure, I did some things I wish I hadn’t.” For many, and all too often, regret takes us down a road that undermines our relationship with others, steals our personal joy and peace, propels us to unhealthy coping mechanisms, and they might even cause us to question our salvation and Jesus’ love for us.
What if the road of regret had an off ramp? What if regrets are really portals into God’s redemptive handiwork and life lessons learned—some painfully, some repeatedly, and certainly some costly? Moreover, what if they are recalled from time to time, not for their hurt or condemnation, but rather, for their positive, redemptive purposefulness? Every prior event, experience, and exchange we have had that produces regret is potentially an opportunity for stimulating our spiritual growth, maturity, wisdom, kingdom perspective, and the love we have for others and for our ever-welcoming Lord.
The root causes of regret often link to the scars and tears that have softened us, humbled us, and ever-so-surely moved us towards the role of elder and sage in His earthly kingdom. Rather than allowing regrets to sideline us, let’s embrace the resulting readiness to be battle-scarred elders for Him that they have produced in us. “Lord, whom and how would you have me love today? Enable me to be aware of those opportunities. What would you have me do today? Show me who to encourage today.” Such are the desires we can lay before Him each morning. And it is He that can and does craft the redemptive results from our lingering regrets. Our Heavenly Father, His precious Son, and the ever-faithful Holy Spirit are in the redemption business. We can give our regrets to them. The time is always right to do so.
The road to the redemption of regret is full of scenic overlooks where we can see just how loving, inviting, and forgiving, and tender our Heavenly Father is. Our senior-aged status is not the long-awaited registration desk where we finally check out and tally our regrets—it is the curtain going up on our encore years. It is when we can play the music we know and love the best, from the highs and lows of our heart. It is when we get a second chance. It is when with time, perspective, and freedom we can potentially be most fully who He made us to be—finely tuned by all that we have seen, heard, experienced, and learned through the decades. It is when His music can play the loudest and strongest in our ears, replacing the enemy’s accusatory voice of regret.
For the record, the Eagles are my all-time favorite band. When Don Henley, co-founder of the band, was asked about the band’s reunion after more than a decade apart, he simply said, “We began to realize [that] maybe we could have that rarest of things in life—a second act. . . you know, a second chance.”2 Our elder years can be that. And if we find regret providing a convenient excuse or a belittling voice regarding the role we can have for Him during our elder years, let’s heed the words of two local musicians. Linda and Robin Williams, from Virginia’s beautiful Shenandoah Valley, wrote a song with the line, “He turns my stumbling blocks into steppingstones” (http://www.robinandlinda.com/goodnews.html). Indeed, He is the One who can redeem our regrets all through our life. I think He is especially keen on doing that during our elder years when the miles have mounted, and the not-so-scenic views have been numerous and varied. . . a second act. . . an encore with Him. Regrets that have morphed into lessons learned, humility embraced, judgment sidelined, understanding received, forgiveness granted, caring expressed. Regrets redeemed by Him for our freedom.
1 “Too little, too late? Dying Kalashnikov felt guilt over blood spilled by AK-47” (January 13, 2014) available at http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/01/13/my-soul-aches-dying-kalashnikov-felt-guilt-over-blood-spilled-by-ak-47/ (accessed 3-20-24).
2 Don Henley speaking in the documentary film titled “History of the Eagles “, (2013), directed by Alison Elwood and produced by Alex Gibney, (viewed on Netflix 8-12-17).
