by Donny Querin
To regret is the saddest and most empty of all feelings. In truth, it is not living at all. The feelings are not like that of anger or tears, it is eternal. To know that the prize lay before us and to not have grasped it merely because of the fear of failure has potential to haunt those of us who have experienced it, forever. Will you let it be such a deciding factor in the success of your life’s journey’s and undertakings? Will you revel in the evil of the past and be content with blindness of the greatness He has for your future. Do not let it be said of you that you were found lost in the folds of regret. Regret breeds regret and it can and will only do that. To live in regret will only lead you to a place of deeper regret. One day you will wake up, alone, wanting so badly to have what you know is available according to the very words of our Lord and you will realize that you have lived regretting and regretting regret.
To regret is to purpose in our hearts to not know victory. To regret is to submit to defeat and the destruction of self worth. To regret is to yield to condemnation. To regret is to agree with every negative thought we’ve ever had. To regret is to steal the gift of God’s tomorrow and replace it with the discord and loneliness of every yesterday. To regret is to fill our lives with emptiness and the thought of a dream, lost, that we can never retrieve.
Truly, we can only hope to hang on to what He has today as tightly as we wish we would have held on to the things of yesterday. Life is and can only be a learning experience. The school of life is forever crying out to teach us those things that will keep us from the dangers He knows are awaiting us and to equip for the challenges He knows are ahead of us. Life has never been challenged by the full potential of one life living out every dream it ever had. We have yet to see the person who will live it to everything the potential of God says we can live it to. Will it be you? Are you that one? When you have lived life will it be said that you haven’t any regrets? Will it be said that in every circumstance, in every situation, in every loss, in every gain, in every death, in every birth, in every time of confusion or assuredness of self, I have been faithful to that which I know to be the calling and the purpose He has strategically placed on my life. Living without regret is not living without mistakes. It is only seeing them as a learning experience and not failure.
Life is not a game to be won. It is not a competition to be dominated. Life is an intricate intertwining of the travels of mere people. People like you and me. People searching for service and love. People searching for purpose. People searching for fulfillment and the satisfaction of the desires that run so deeply in each of our hearts. Life is people. Shouldn’t people be our lives?? Surely if we live in Him for anything less than this, we have missed the mark of love. We have professed to know His heart without living its testimony in our lives.
Take hold today, of that which you have known in your heart since childhood to be the simple and exquisite plan of God for YOU and the short time you have on this small earth. Do not let this day pass you by without grabbing onto the things He has called important. Don’t neglect the gift, the unique gift you have to share His love with the world. Don’t live a life full of regret. Fear of man is not only a snare, it will prove to prevent you from hearing and obeying God’s voice. It will callous and harden your heart to the point of purposed rebellion and arrogance.
You are capable! You can! You have what it takes! You are ready! You are able! You have been equipped by His Spirit! You are what the world has been waiting for! Don’t regret today and tomorrow will follow. You are willing!!
All that is left is action!! Go ahead……prove it…..
July 21, 2001
In an effort to reveal the fallacy of fear and regret.
In hopes to somehow uplift and encourage a life to the point of acting on that which they know to be God in their life.