"If you could change anything about your childhood or past...what would it be?"
This question, and many more like it, has been seen on the likes of social Facebook Groups lately, and they are screaming one word as I read them, “regret.”
Alas, I have my full share of life regrets, and I have let them get the best of me when they come to the surface. Usually coming out of left field and after many years of time has passed. In reflection of facing these regrets and considering what I would say to “my younger self,” I am faced with myself in a way that requires some guts standing in the proverbial mirror of myself; and one of two outcomes occur:
- I wind up in a ball of frustration over not being able to change anything about my past.
Or
- I remember that who I am is not the culmination of my past, but in what Jesus did for me on the Cross, in spite of my past.
It’s in the latter where, time and time again, I find myself experiencing the benefits of self-examination, but only by way of the Bible.
I get it. I, too, once questioned how a “book” can help me. It sounded ludicrous, even though I was raised on the foundation of it by the Old Testament. I struggled with this because how I understood the Bible was based on how it was presented to me in my childhood: as merely a book that that housed God’s law and that God, by this law, shall never be crossed, “or else.”
Legalism renders a human heart to easily be tempted to judge itself, and not in healthy ways.
Once I realized my perception of the Bible was hanging me up, was the very moment I began to step into the restored life God gave to me, in Christ; and strengthened me to receive. Though, it was in my late 30’s when I woke up, I still woke up the embrace the truth that He strengthened me to receive His gift of salvation in my late 20’s; albeit in spite of the false teaching I was influenced by for many years.
In turn, instead of asking how the Bible can help me, I began to ask, “How can the Bible help me deal with my past?” instead of trying “fix” my past.
The answer to this question provided the simple answer I needed to accept, by His Word: Jesus.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”
2 Corinthians 5:17
I had to come face to face and reconcile with the reality that the past, and what I did (and what was done to me), was gone [in God’s mind]. No, the things that happened cannot be forgotten, but they no longer defined me; only Jesus does. Once I embraced this as the truth it is, did I begin to move on from regret to contentment [in Christ].
We are not the culmination of our past doings, lack of doings, or even the things that were done or not done to us. The truth is the truth in who God says we are, in Christ; and vainly questioning this in the name of “reflection” will eventually drive us crazy and never solve any of our grief over our past.
Everything we have been through in life God uses to help shape and mold us into who He says we are, in Christ; but then again, only by His word, when we trust it as the truth it is. From there, the process of sanctification is engaged and doesn’t cease until we are done, by His deeming, on this earth. Therefore, there is nothing to regret, but everything to be thankful to God for, for using it for our good, the good of others, and above all – His glory.
This, above all, is where we find contentment. Delight. Hope.
Only Jesus.
“Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act.”
Psalm 37:3-5
“So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”
1 Corinthians 10:31