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Regret Having No Regrets
Regret No Regrets
“I have no regrets. All my mistakes made me who I am today”. That platitude mimics self-healing; healing is important. That platitude is also how Satan hides the darker truth.
John Donne wrote, “No Man Is An Island”. Paul Simon penned a famous song called, “I am a Rock”. The first admonishes that the death of one diminishe all. The second one opines the advantages of being alone,: “And a rock feels no pain; And an island never cries”. Both proclaim truths. Reality is we bless others and hurt them.
When we commit the acts from which we have “no regrets”, Satan hides the darker truth from which we cannot escape. A.A. recognizes this, and A.A. is all about healing. Notice steps 8 and 9:
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
No one is an island. While my mistakes, transgressions, and sins have made we what I am today; have I “unmade” others? Notice this awareness in Jesus concerning Peter’s rebuke:
“He spoke openly about this. Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning around and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! You are not thinking about God’s concerns but human concerns.”” (CSB’17 Mark 8:32-33)
Did you notice, “But turning around and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter”. Jesus’s fear was Peter would draw others away. In this sense, Simon Peter, whose name means small rock, was not an island or rock, because he touched others by their watching.
That is the darker nature of sinning. We might recover from our regretful behavior, but do those we sinned with, against, for, and in front of, recover?
Despite the dichotomy of regret and healing, we cannot allow our guilt to destroy us. We forgive ourselves, accept God’s grace, and reach out to those we have been stumbling blocks to. This metaphor is especially meaningful in a land like Israel, filled with rocks. Jesus’s forerunner had to “prepare the way” which in a literal sense meant clearing the way of rocks. Satan’s servants – us when we sin – put rocks in front of the spiritually blind. It would be like putting rocks in front of the physically blind (Leviticus 19:14). What a jerk we would be! We might regret it afterwards, but our regret does not heal their harm. Should we not regret that because we learned better from it?
Then there is another trap of regret: being destroyed by guilt. The choices are: 1) No regrets, being blind to others hurting. 2) Being destroyed by regret, which leaves me hurting and blinded still. 3) Allowing God to give His grace of light that allows us to live with regret because we use our regretful pasts to glorify him with our grace‐filled present and future. Only by remembering our past can we basked in grace (1 Timothy 1:12-17).
I regret I have regrets, but grace made me who I am today.
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