New Morning Mercies #110

It is grace to not be paralyzed by regret. The cross teaches that you are not stuck, not cursed to pay forever for your past.

He sat before me with his head in his hands and kept saying over and over again: “I just wish I could have it all back. I just wish I could press a button and do it all over again. I wish I knew then what I know now. I wish I could try again, but I can’t.” He must have said this or something similar to this ten times. He was incredibly distraught and regretful, and yet in the best spiritual condition he had ever been in. I really did feel his pain and I was very happy that he felt it too, because I knew that what he was experiencing was the pain of grace.

He was a hard, driven, and demanding man who kept moving forward no matter what and never looked back. He didn’t care what trail of destruction he left behind him. He was successful. He knew it and wanted everyone else to know it too. He had loved his work more than his family, and in the process, he had lost both. It was all gone—family, job, and wealth. He had played the game by himself and for himself, and had lost in a big way. But now his eyes were open, and the scene broke his heart. Bankrupt and alone, he looked back with grief at every arrogant moment. It was painful, but it was grace. God was making his eyes see so that he would never go back there again.

It’s a grace to regret. Grace allows you to face your sin, to own it and not shift the blame. But it is also grace that forgives what has been exposed. Grace forces you to feel the pain of your regrets, but never asks you to pay for them, because the price has already been paid by Jesus. Colossians 2:14 talks about how “the record of debt that stood against us” has been canceled by the sacrifice of Jesus. You can look back, but with your burden lifted by forgiving grace. It is good to look back and celebrate the rescue of grace. It is good to mourn the sins of the past. It is not good to be paralyzed by them. Grace lives at the intersection between clarity of sight and hope for the future. And that grace is yours for the taking. You don’t have to rewrite your past, making yourself look more righteous than you ever really were. You can stare the truth in the face because of what Jesus has done for you. You can own what needs to be owned and confess what needs to be confessed, and then move on to live in a new and better way. The same grace that forgives your past empowers you to live in a new way in the future.

So look backward and look forward. God’s grace enables you to do both, celebrating forgiveness for the past and embracing power for a new and better future. Only God’s grace gifts you with peace with your past and hope for your future.

For further study and encouragement: Philippians 3:12–21