Regret is an odd beast. I’m not talking about major regrets – some people have committed significant sins or been sinned against in grievous ways. That’s not at all what this post is about.
Rather, I’m talking about your everyday, run-of-the-mill regrets.
“I wish I wouldn’t have taken this job.”
“Why did we adopt this cat?”
“I wish I bought a house a few years ago.”
“Why did we ever leave that state?”
We all have them. “If I had only known then what I know now, my life would have been so much different.” I’m talking about those kind of thoughts that keep us up at night.
Living Within Our Limits
Let me tell you something obvious. You didn’t know then what you know now. In many cases, you couldn’t have known then what you know now.
Who expected a pandemic? Who expected the housing market to go insane? Who expected this economy? Who expected the cat to be demonic? No one.
No one could have expected this.
And yet, for some reason, we tend to hold our past-selves accountable for things only our present-self could know.
God calls us to be faithful in our lives. Which means doing the best we can with what we have. It doesn’t mean doing the best thing imaginable with what we don’t have.
Faithfulness takes creation seriously. It means we acknowledge we are creatures, not the Creator, and are thus limited in our power and perspective. It means we do the best with what we’ve been given, knowing we haven’t been given everything (and that’s OK).
Dying Outside Our Limits
A while back, a couple were quite happy to be created, to be limited, to fully depend on God. Until one day, they got the idea that being a creature was bad. That being limited was bad. That not being like their Creator was bad. After an exchange with a serpent about some forbidden fruit, they decided to break outside of being limited at the (false) promise of being like God.
Isn’t that what we do day in and day out? We hate our limits, we hate not knowing everything, and we strive for divine qualities that aren’t ours. We strive to quit being creatures and to become the creator. It’s just less obvious without fruit and serpents.
We want omniscience (to know everything). Omniscience about what’s going to happen with jobs and kids and houses and cats. We want to know the future before we decide in the present. But omniscience isn’t something given to creatures. Omniscience is reserved for the creator.
We want omnipotence (having power over all things). We want to be able to control the outcome. If I get enough medical tests…, if I raise my kids to…, if I invest properly…. We think we can control everything and when things are outside our plan and control, we regret. But omnipotence isn’t something given to creatures. Omnipotence is reserved for the creator.
We’re not supposed to know the outcome of every day and decision. We’re not called to omniscience or omnipotence. We’re called to faithfulness.
Well Done, Good and Faithful Servant.
We then have to ask the question, when we’re regretting past decisions, what’s the standard we’re comparing them against? Is it the standard for creation, or the standard for a Creator?
Regret is often judging ourselves against what we know now. But that’s an altogether unfair standard. We didn’t know then what we know now.
Rather, we should consider our past actions against what was faithful. Did we do our best to honor God with what we had? Not with what we didn’t have. But what we’d been given at that moment.
Interestingly enough, that seems to be God’s standard for His people, doesn’t it? If we are faithful.
His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ (Matthew 25:23)
Why are our standards higher than God’s?
An Anxious Generation
The studies and statistics about anxiety are significant and concerning. But with regret, it’s almost like we’re saying, “There’s not enough future possibilities to worry about, I need to worry about the past too.” Jesus tells us not to worry about tomorrow, so we find a loophole and begin worrying about yesterday instead. Instead of considering what’s true (Phil 4), we live in the land of what-ifs – and it’s killing us.
But our standard isn’t a creator-level, all-knowing, all-powerful, all-wise perfection, it’s creaturely faithfulness. And I’m convinced that’s the missing ingredient in all our late-night thoughts of regret.
I’m not saying that recovering faithfulness is the solution, but it’s a start.