REGRET - An Untenable Load

Guilt, Shame, Regret.    I've been thinking about these three things for a while now, and wondering how they're different, how each one works, and what the remedy is for each. And He does indeed have a remedy for each.    I knew He would!    I've been wanting to dig into what the Lord says about how each of these impacts us and how to move forward from them, because they all keep us in some kind of bondage.   And we were made for freedom. 

Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.  Galatians 5:1

And yet, guilt, shame and regret are so familiar to us, even as Christians - so familiar in fact that we barely notice their presence.    We notice them more in their absence, as they are lifted from us, as we hand them over and He fills the spaces they leave, with His forgiveness and dignity and grace.  

I've already written here about shame and its presence and impact in my life.

Guilt happens when we sin, when we miss the mark, through what we do or what we fail to do.   And we're often guilty of things we can't even perceive as wrong.   Our guilt has been paid for by the precious blood of Christ.   We don't have to hang onto it, though we often do.   Oh, that we would learn to keep short accounts with Him over our sin.

....for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,  and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.  God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood – to be received by faith.   Romans 3:23-25

But who can discern their own errors?   Forgive my hidden faults.  Ps 19:12

If we're walking with the Lord, guilt comes with conviction, which is specific to the sin, and leads us to ask for forgiveness and to receive it.   That is His way forward.   

For day and night your hand was heavy on me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer.   Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity.   I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord.’   And you forgave the guilt of my sin.  Ps 32:4,5 

Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.   See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.   Ps 139:23,24

But what about regret?   It's different to shame, different to guilt.    What is it and how do we deal with it in a Godly way?  

These are a couple of definitions I found:    to regret is to feel sad, repentant, or disappointed over (something that one has done or failed to do), to feel sorry about a situation, especially something sad or wrong or a mistake that you have made.

Regret is about seeing the consequences of our decisions or mistakes.    Sometimes we're simply disappointed that we've fallen short of our own standards.   Sometimes we regret the impact our words or actions have had on our reputation or dignity.   

We don't have to live long to accumulate regrets.   We do the wrong thing and we make decisions and mistakes, but they often do much more than just damage our reputation.  Oftentimes our sin, our decisions and mistakes really hurt people - people entrusted to us, people close to us, people we were supposed to love.  Sometimes our actions have long-lasting consequences that we can't undo, can't fix, can't ignore.    Regret often weighs heavily on us. 

What I really wanted to think through was how to move forward from regret, because so many of us feel it and carry it, and get stuck under it.   It paralyses us and we often carry it like a martyr, thinking we deserve it or that we're doing Him a service.    But He doesn't tell us to carry regret.  I can't find that command in the Word.  

He doesn't even tell us to say sorry.  He tells us to BE sorry, to repent and move forward.  Repentance is His remedy for regret.  

Now I rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that your sorrow led to repentance. For you were made sorry in a godly manner, that you might suffer loss from us in nothing. For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death.  For observe this very thing, that you sorrowed in a godly manner: What diligence it produced in you, what clearing of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what vehement desire, what zeal, what vindication! In all things you proved yourselves to be clear in this matter.    2 Cor 7:9-11

I want THAT kind of regret, that follows HIS way forward and doesn't get stuck in a slow death - cut off from Him, thinking that the regret itself is from Him, disappointed only because I've fallen short of my own standards.    

Beyond regret and repentance is often the need for restitution and reconciliation.   The Lord tells us to make restitution, where possible, and to put things right where we can.

‘Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to them; then come and offer your gift.  Matt 5:23,24 

But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, ‘Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.’    Jesus said to him, ‘Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham.  For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.’  Luke 19:8-10

Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Carefully consider what is right in the eyes of everybody.   If it is possible on your part, live at peace with everyone.   Romans 12:17,18

And then there is redemption.    Only He is able to redeem our brokenness, fill in the holes left by our sin, to make the rough places smooth, to bring life out of death, to put right things that we can't.   I'm sure Joseph's brothers carried a lot of regret over their decision to sell Joseph to slave traders.   But God.   What they meant for evil, God meant for good. 

In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace.  Eph 1:7 

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.  Romans 8:28

Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain.   And the glory of the Lord will be revealed... Isa 40:4,5

When I first started to put down thoughts about regret, on scraps of paper, it was just theory and that was only a few days ago.  But now, faced with yet another long-term relational issue that has blown up just this week, I find that it is far from theory.   Right now, I NEED to know what to do with regret.   I suddenly find myself with regret from years’ worth of trying too hard to fix something that I had no real power to fix.  I find that I am faced with so many regrets, and something so broken that I've finally, reluctantly, out of sheer exhaustion, handed to Him and admitted, to myself more than anyone, that 'I can't do this anymore'.  

I found myself saying those words, words I never thought I'd let myself say, to my dear friend and sister-in-law when she let me know what was happening.    And with that admission, came a flood of 'failures', again, and memories so painful that driving to town was once again difficult (note to self - keep tissues on the front seat of the car!).    So much pain from trying to be something for people that HE never asked me to be - to appease them, to win their favour, to 'love' them, or maybe to just avoid the fallout.    The anger at the unfairness of their demands, the damage they've done to each other, to my brothers, but also to me, the weight of that burden that I've carried for so long, the potential anger and rejection that will no doubt be voiced in the coming weeks, the pain of their brokenness, and ours - it all came crashing in.     Facing all of that, finally, was hard.   And I sure didn't see it coming.  Just a random phone call, on an ordinary day, that opened the floodgates of buried pain, yet again.  

But, after that wave of pain settled, my default was regret.   Regret that I haven't done more, haven't been enough, haven't tried hard enough, haven't fixed it, haven't saved them.   I've fallen short of my own standards and expectations, failed my own vows to stop them hurting themselves and each other.    So many of my regrets are based on MY ability, or lack thereof, to do the impossible.  

I'm so incredibly grateful that the Lord had gone ahead of me that day and organised for me to spend time with a Godly friend, within an hour or so of the phone call, because we just happened to have an appointment anyway.

In talking through the situation with her, I found myself voicing even more regret that in trying to do the impossible, I probably made their situation worse.  Regret compounded is an even heavier burden to carry.    She was able to show me that their demands and my expectations of myself were unreasonable.  I can finally see that the weight of their demands and my own vows and expectations, have created a slow, internal bleed that needs to STOP.  Once again, I feel so much like the woman haemorrhaging, who just needs to touch the hem of His garment.   

So, where to from here?   I need His perspective on it and I need to let go of these regrets.   I can just dismiss them as a package deal, and say everything I've done is fine because I tried, because I did my best.    But no, I really need to understand where I've failed HIM - and them.  I need to repent of those things, and receive His forgiveness and His cleansing and healing.   That is the way forward.  And that is the way of redemption.  

Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.   Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord does not count against them and in whose spirit is no deceit.  Ps 32:1-2

Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits - who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.  Ps 103:2-5

This is the package I need - forgiveness, healing, redemption, dignity, compassion, desires met, renewal. 

I also need to understand where my feeble attempts have been unloving and unhelpful and to STOP doing that.   As someone pointed out to me - doing what they want isn't loving them.   'Doing what they need and what they'll probably hate you for - that's what love looks like now.'

I can see how so much of what I've done or tried to do was driven by fear, not love, not really, and certainly not done in His strength.   And so much of what I've left undone, even recently, has been driven by resentment and exhaustion.   How on earth did I think I could love them well when carrying such an untenable load?

Image courtesy of:   God Verses Man: Question of today( What Is A Man?)

I'm praying that by letting go of the regrets, and repenting of the sins I'm still trying to understand, that He will fill those empty spaces with the grace that enables me to love them well.  And I'm praying that I'll be able to hide in His love when they can't love in return.  Finally facing that fallout might actually be a gateway to freedom for me, and maybe even for them. 

Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.”  Ps 91:1,2

I found this beautiful song, and it sums it up so well. 

So if I fall and if I fail

I will trust Your mercy is

Greater than all of this

And if I bend and if I break

I'll trust the hands that hold me are

Greater than all my regrets