Day 4129 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

Romans 7:19 NIV

makes friends with regret

What is a friend though? Well, as we all know, or at least I hope we do, a friend is something trusted that we then know we can turn to. A friend is something we can rely on to be there for us whenever we may need whatever we may need. A friend is someone with whom we share that sort of giving love in which the both of us feel that trust and appreciate then that common reliance. A friend confides in us and we then in they as we both of us have our struggles and scars, stories to tell that we can’t tell just anyone. A friend then is someone in whom we find and feel a connection that’s courageous, caring, kind, compassionate, considerate.

Yes, a friend considers us a friend and wants then what all friends should want for all folks and that is the very best of everything.

And yet a friend is hopefully based closely unto the vicinity of honesty and therefore knows that, honestly, the very best is never either where we are nor then where we’ve been but is rather everything still to come which will come to define all we come to be.

In days ahead.

Indeed, all that which is best is and must forever be considered still ahead of us as, well, if we’ve already found it and either this then is it or it was whatever, wherever, whoever we already were and yet are not any longer, well, what then is hope and why would any seek to assume they need have it?

No, hope is a decidedly uplifting matter which comes alongside us in lives of tatter and tells us to keep going, to keep trying, to maybe even dare be found broken, bleeding, crying if that’s what it takes to make peace with this day in this place in which the pace has left us worn and weary and wondering why we need to try anymore. Because that’s what life here does.

And, oddly enough, that because of what we so often do or don’t within this life we know or won’t.

The difference, I believe, is only to be ever seen inside the presence of regret and whether or not we’ve dared make friends with it.

And yet, why welcome such a companionship with something so confrontational to our arrogance? Why invite a chance to delight in that which drags us down as it dregs back through what are old mistakes that we made in what are broken ways? Why incline our lives unto the perusal through past problems and failures and fears, the fear even still so often present here wherever we are?

Well, because regret’s hope is that we’ve grown from who we were as were what did those things of which we’re now not so proud and thus too that where we are, who we are is then not who nor what we clearly then once were.

No, regret itself is friends with were as it’s of an audacity to claim that, even if through pain or strain, that way, that life now lay dead or dying in what is a past we’ve walked away from toward what then can only be, as far as hope would prefer, only everything bettered. And, well, anything better can only be had at the hands of our letting go of all we once know we knew of what’s then a life changed in whatever ways and to whatever measure they might.

Question is do we even have the courage to believe they might change, that we might change, that we can grow, that we can indeed come to know what is that better that all hope measures over but only there against all that was, perhaps all that is?

Indeed, are we the best we can be? And if so, how do we know for sure?

Against what are we comparing that verdict in order to validate it if not for what we then know wasn’t the better than that we know now? And, well, how can we measure such things as anything having so improved if we’ve not at first agreed to lose what wasn’t then what we perhaps back then believed was best too?

And, well, how, or maybe why would we ever again dare confine our lives to any such imagination that what, where, who we are is ever then to ever be anything even close to whatever better is?

No, I personally cannot comprehend this. And that’s because I have still entirely too many things that I do, say, think, maybe even believe that I, as of yet, cannot see as something I regret. And yet, I know I’ve felt that same exact way about a growing list of things that I do now regret.

So who’s right?

The one who sees so many regrets in what’s then a life I’ve lived in which I did things, said things that I feel only sorrow and shame for having done or dared to say? Or is it he who doesn’t yet seem to see the same shame inside the things that he will one day?

Truth is that so long as we think we’re right, odds are we’re not. So long as we believe we’ve got this all figured out, we’re probably falling well short. So long as we claim to understand the fullness to the depth and degree in which, for which, why which something or someone does or does not exist, then we’re merely lying to ourselves as there’s just no feasible way for that to ever be the case as within this place none can know all there is to know.

But again, hopefully we all do know regret.

Because, well, without it how then can we know we’ve grown?

And too how can we grow if we continue ahead only thinking that already we know anything about anything really?

Is knowledge the finish line we should seek for in life? I mean, in truth Scripture tells us that with more knowledge comes more grief. And indeed, this is a truth that regret knows to see as it knows where to look. But do we? Have we? Can we? Will we? Yes, will we ever dare seek for those places in which we were mistaken, wanting for them found so as to glean some scene of why we did what we now wish we didn’t? Have we that courage to even confess that there are things in our past, in our present that we do wish we didn’t do?

We can if we allow regret to help us pride lose.

But again, will we?

Or rather will we continue ahead with this idea in our head that tells us how well we’re doing, how amazing we are, how impressive our lives and our living of them has become?

Sadly it seems as though the latter is the ladder that most folks continue to ascend upon, waking daily to walk higher toward what they alone have allowed themselves, and that alone, to imagine is the grandest of all outcomes and achievements possible in life. And yet that’s too the same blindness which binds us to trusting only in us to get everything right, figure it all out.

A delusion which can allow no room for regret nor its improvement.

Because, well, if we’re as great as we so clearly love to believe we are or can be then never can we see anything of any growth, any gain, any glory then.

Because we seem to believe that glory is only gained whenever we’ve stopped growing and rather arrived unto that life in which we bask every day in our ability to claim we know everything.

Do we?

Or doesn’t regret tell a different story?

Or do we even know the story regret could hold having opted to remain afraid of it and the changes inspired of it?

Again, the answer to this seems sadly obvious as within this world exists an arrogance which has so many seeming to believe that they do indeed do everything right, know everything they need to know, are everything they could ever hope to be. But friends, would true hope ever dare agree to only ever be only all that is? After all, a hope that’s had is no hope at all as all hope rather has to exist in the places and people we aren’t yet as it exists to inspire us to keep going, to keep growing, to keep learning.

And yes, that often from our mistakes.

But you see, that’s the problem with pride. It’s that blinds our eyes and thus binds our lives to being perpetually lived as if we make no mistakes. As if do get things right. As if we never say a word wrong or a wrong word. As if we, at worst, mess up in what are ways humorous if anything. And we do indeed laugh it off as if our miniscule errors are of such little meaning that maybe even God will laugh with us.

But why would He who created us with the built-in ability to feel such weight as regret’s misery prove the same as He who wouldn’t take then seriously what regret takes seriously?

Doesn’t make any sense considering how He’s the One who defines sin as death.

For there’s nothing funny about death, well, unless you know that where you’re going thereafter is where awaits love and laughter, peace and purpose, life and it endless.

Yes, if you know these things then you can laugh at death trying always to scare you as rather, in humility, you find within such an exit from this existence the final fulfillment of all that hope was ever meant to be. Which then much be all that here and life within thus isn’t.

But my question for you is how are we to measure the difference?

How can we understand the hope that is Heaven if we have any hope here? How can we believe everything better there if almost everything here is close enough to good enough? How can everlasting life mean all that much if and when the life we live is seen to us as good enough? How can any life be ever even decent if can’t see the descent we’ve endured away from the same?

And how can we know we’ve fallen if not for regret helping us see how far?

My friends, that’s what friendship is for!

It comes to us endlessly with this kind of loving honesty that wants honestly for our better, for our best, but then has to always help us to always see that all that’s best, thus better indeed, it cannot ever be whoever we already are. Because if that were ever the case, well then the rest of life would itself be a waste as it’s been promised to wade through war and worry.

And, well, it’s thus then to be considered unkind to leave those who’ve perfected their lives unto the torrents and trials that are coming upon the rest.

Yet why the trials and torments as promised in and of His wrath if we’re all so far from bad that our lives are their best?

Again, doesn’t make any sense.

And why is that?

Because some of us haven’t within us that ability, that arrogance to claim we are our best. I don’t. In fact I seem only able to ever believe that I’m as far away today as I didn’t know I was 20 years ago. No, in fact one of my lone remaining hopes is the better that I can still become. Who is he? What does he look like? What does he sound like? What does he say? What does he think? What does he believe?

I don’t know, but that only because I do know that life is meant for us to grow, to learn, to change even.

And I’ve made so many changes that so too have I an at least equal measure of regret.

Why else would we ever agree to change if not because we became of the ability to realize we needed to, wanted to even? And, well, how can we ever want to change unless and until we’re helped to see the things we need to change and too the reasons why?

This is what regret helps us with in what are ways that nothing else really can. And that’s because regret comes with this sense of sorrow that helps us to know things for what they are instead of what our ego wants to believe them to be. And make no mistake this is one of life’s bigger discrepancies, perhaps the very largest of them all. It’s that difference between good and good enough. Between better and best. Between where, who, what we are and what all we are not.

Either still or yet.

This is the home of our friend regret.

It’s this place in which the past meets the present as what are hopefully strangers, a meeting made then with the express intention of ensuring that the future knows little of either.

Why?

Because that’s the point of growth. It’s to let go what is for the chance at what isn’t yet. It’s the surrendering of the already for the better which is always to come. It’s the admitting that whatever was wasn’t what we wanted it to be, and that with a then humbled audacity to believe that what is now isn’t perhaps what we’ll one day wish it were.

Rather odds are that we’re doing, saying, thinking and believing things here and now that we’ll, inside someday up ahead, know as only another regret.

But do we have that courage in us to continue to chase our growth and improvement if such are only found in our loss of whatever we are now?

It’s not easy to find and even harder to hold whenever you do. Because, as we all know, we’re all a people who prefer such comforts as complacency and compromise. For those things are easy and thus make for an easier life. And indeed, having known so much regret as I have and indeed still do, I can tell you true that it’s not easy. It’s not fun. It’s a misery unmatched in that it shows us what we got wrong without any possible way of going back and getting it right.

No, regret is a story that doesn’t change anything about everything it helps you wish you could.

What about that is supposed to help us feel good?

Thankfully the point and purpose of this life in this place for never for our to feel so great as we’ve all so often tried anyway. No, the point is for our growth in what it is to claim we know that One and Only Son of the Most High. That is why we have this life!

It’s to help us come to know Christ.

And, well, what can serve us better in that growth toward His best, both promise and too the punishment which purchased it, if not for our ability to share somewhat within it, both the promise yes but so too the pain?

After all, He calls us explicitly to take up our crosses and follow.

Why’d we need crosses though?

Because we’ve a life to lose my friends!

It’s that one we’ve lived in which mistakes we’re made, regrets were found because of His helping to see them as mistakes. It’s that life we knew in which we thought we knew more than guilt says we did. It’s that life in which we did things of which we’re now not at all quite so proud. It’s that life we see in only hindsight, and it’s brutal honesty that honestly hopes that we don’t miss quite so many chances as it knows we have already.

It’s the humility that helps us see that we have missed so many opportunities to have grown, to improve, to have even enjoyed so many things that regret helps us see now that we never did and perhaps never can.

Yes, regret shows us the worst we’ve done, the villains we’ve become.

Why?

To inspire us all unto a life in which we do better, in which we are better.

All because regret gives us a benchmark against which to measure such growth as better and that hope that it’s still somewhere out there.

I believe it is. In fact I know it is. I know in my bones, in their marrow that what’s best is still up ahead.

How?

Because I’ve met with enough regret to know that better and best isn’t here, wasn’t yet.

Maybe I’m wrong. Perhaps I’m broken. Knowing my past and the many mistakes and misunderstandings still standing within it, yeah, there is always that chance, I admit that.

But I’d rather believe in better being something that I can still be, can still find, will one day know than to confine my life to being lived as if all there is to all of this is only whatever I made of it or can make of it.

That idea scares me to death. Because I have regrets. I have a lot of them.

But that I do is only because I can now see the many things I did that I shouldn’t have done. And knowing that gives me the ability to believe that I am not who I was once as so often now I only wish I was then who I am now because now I know better than to have messed up all that I have before.

Because that’s what a friend does. It helps us see what we can do better. It leans the shoulder whenever we’ve made another error. It listens to us as we lose our ego and let down our guards and just pour out our hearts seeking to empty them of all the struggle and sorrow which collects within them.

Regret helps notice that struggle and sorrow.

Thus it helps us find relief as is maybe only ever to be found in our finding out that whilst we’ve messed up, the hope is that we’re not done yet. That we can change. That we can grow. That we will come to know how to do better than we know we didn’t before.

Again, maybe I’m going mad, losing my mind.

In some ways I hope I am because my only hope is that I’m not yet what all I can be, should be.

Regret exists to help me know the difference and to measure the distance I’ve walked from who and what I was once.

Yes, regret is a great friend as it helps us learn today what we didn’t or couldn’t yesterday so that maybe tomorrow we’ll be better for having learned, albeit the hard way, what not to do, what not to say, who not to stay.

Because life moves on.

Regret helps us to not only move with it but to always move on from what it wasn’t meant to be.

So welcome regret as a friend my friends as in many ways it seems to bring hope with it.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold