Episode 1. Dealing with Regret
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Too many people live with regret – regret over the past. Of course it doesn’t make sense to let the past ruin your present and rob you of your future. But all too often, it’s really hard to get …
Too many people live with regret – regret over the past. Of course it doesn’t make sense to let the past ruin your present and rob you of your future. But all too often, it’s really hard to get over the regrets of the past.
Over the past three weeks we’ve spent a lot of time talking about weight and diet and how to eliminate many of the diseases that whilst they were virtually unheard of just a century or so ago are today’s major killers, obesity, heart attack, stroke, diabetes. What we have seen is there has been significant dietary changes that have happened in the last hundred years or so through the introduction of refined carbohydrates, sugar in particular and white flour and all that other stuff which have by and large caused the epidemics in diabetes and cardio vascular disease and the answer to virtually eliminating those diseases is simply turning the clock back on our diets and taking out all the rubbish in the so called western diet that’s killing us.
If you want to find out more about that hop along to our website www.christianityworks.com and you can listen to all fifteen episodes in this series of A Different Perspective called “Healthy Living To A Ripe Old Age”.
But today we’re moving on from the physical to the emotional because our health isn’t just tied to our bodies, its tied to our minds and in particular to our emotions. Many, many people are living rotten lives because they have some poisonous emotions pumping around inside them and this week we’re going to talk about what, in my view, are the top five of those.
When I was setting out to prepare these programs I asked my friends on Facebook to suggest the negative emotions that perhaps they would want me to talk about on the program. I was kind of shocked, I was shocked by the number of negative emotions they came up with, yeah it was pretty scary actually but this week only has five days in it so I’ve settled on these five, regret, disappointment, stress, envy and low self esteem.
So today we’re kicking off with regret, which is why I asked you that question a few minutes ago, what is it in your past that you regret? Something you find difficult to let go and get over. You know as I get to know people I almost always discover something, I mean something in their past that’s holding them back today.
For way, way, way too many people their past is ruining their present and robbing them of their future. You may have heard me say that before, I say it often because it’s so true, just stop and think about that for a moment. The past is the past right? It’s locked in, you can’t change it, no matter how much you want to change it nothing that you or I or anyone can ever do can change the past and yet for so many people the regrets of the past are messing with their emotions.
It may be a deep hurt or a loss or a failure and try as they may they just can’t move on from it. It continues to make you emotionally sick today so you can’t enjoy it, you can’t live out today to the full. People who are sexually abused as children find that in particular. The abuse lives on in their emotions and tragically those who were abused find it difficult to form intimate lasting relationships. They’re carrying around shame and guilt and anger and unforgiveness. It eats away at them and the grim statistics are that someone who was abused as a child is far more likely themselves to become an abuser of children when they become adults.
That’s not true of all, please don’t think that’s what I’m saying but statistically speaking adults who abuse children are very likely themselves to have been abused when they were children.
But it’s not just child abuse it could be that you feel your parents didn’t love you. I know one man who is a very prominent leader whose parents abandoned him and it’s something that still affects him today. Or perhaps you’ve been through a divorce, perhaps you’ve lost your position or your status, perhaps you made some mistake, a big mistake that continues to affect you emotionally to this day.
We’re amazingly complex emotional creatures and our emotions are often still attached to that regret from the past even though the physical impacts of that regret are long gone it continues to ruin a person’s present and rob them of their future and that my friend is such a tragedy because you and I only have this one life to live here on this earth. It’s not a dress rehearsal, once it’s gone it’s gone, this life, this precious life that you and I have been given to live on this earth.
People go to counselling to try and get rid of the effects of the past. I just want to help you today to think through that reality. There’s a saying “don’t cry over spilled milk”, sure clean up the mess, sure learn from your mistakes but once the milk is spilled on the floor you can’t un-spill it, you can’t turn the clock back and change it as much as you wish you could.
It’s time to forget what lays behind and to strain forward and make the most of what you and I have been given, what today is about, the opportunities that lie ahead for tomorrow. You can’t change the past but you can change how you react to it. You can’t change the past but you can change what you do with it today and how you live with it today.
When I look back on my life hey I’ve made some really stupid mistakes, some big ones, mistakes that cost me the things that mattered most to me and those mistakes have left scars on me emotionally, they’ve changed who I am, they’ve changed me for the better. Today I’m hopefully a more understanding person, more understanding of people who make mistakes than I was before I made my mistake.
Today I’m a more compassionate person and I’m not naturally a compassionate person I have to tell you but today I’m more compassionate because I’ve lived through some times in my life where the compassion of others literally saved my life. Those are good outcomes, those are the things that I take and use for the benefit of others. If I could wind the clock back on some of those mistakes I would but I can’t that’s it, it’s done.
What I can do is learn from those mistakes. What I can do is to use the positive changes that came out them to help others. And what I can do is to look forward to a healthy future where okay I will still make some mistakes but I can know that I’ll recover from them, I’ll learn from them, I’ll forgive myself and I’ll get on with my life, this one precious life that I’ve been given to live here on this earth.
For some people today it’s time to move on from the regrets of the past but that’s not something we can do for the most part just on our own; a counsellor, a psychologist, some joker on the radio trying to encourage you to get over your past. For the most part none of those have the power to help you get over the regrets of the past. The only person who does is Jesus.
Jesus died so that you and I could be forgiven our sins and if you and I put our trust in Jesus God forgives us our sins. In fact the Bible clearly says that God remembers our sin no more. So if God has forgiven us our past isn’t it time for us to forgive ourselves? And listen Jesus rose again to give us newness of life, literally a new life, a fresh start with the slate wiped completely clean. Writes Paul the Apostle:
If anyone is in Christ then they’re a brand new creation. Look the old things have all passed away and everything is new. (2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 17)
Yes we can grieve over the past, we should grieve over the past, Paul also writes to his friends in Corinth:
For Godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation and brings no regret but worldly grief produces death.
When we grieve over it we turn away from our part in whatever happened back there, that’s called repenting, we turn away from that, we turn back to God, we take it to God and God is the one who takes it and transforms us and makes everything, us, our emotions, our circumstances, everything new.
My friend Jesus, Jesus is the power to change, Jesus is the bringer of new life; Jesus is the answer to your grief and to the regrets of your past. My friend He’s the only answer – Jesus.
Comments
Michael & Dilys Howarth
We get Fresh and read it during our daily devotions then discuss the issues at hand – much good `food for thought`.
We pray that many others will also find comfort. May they have the opportunity to discuss the subject matter and other related thoughts with friends or neighbors.
We pray for Christianityworks and the continued worthy devotion to the work of the Lord that your mission are involved with. May He bless and prosper and continue to guide your focus and inspiration
Jeremy
Just want to say thanks so much to Berni for being there to school me on Christian life every morning. I listen every day on my way to work. I find his wisdom really inspiring so, thanks Berni. From Darwin NT
Jez