Posts Tagged: regrets

“No Worries! The God Who Is Both Leader and Companion!”

On July 31, 2018 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

Most of us are afraid of the future, to a greater or lesser extent.  Some of us are so prone to fear that we even fear the past.  (We don’t usually think of fearing the past, but that is only because we call our fear of the past “regret.”)  And, frankly, the present can also be pretty intimidating.

That doesn’t leave a lot of time to not be afraid, does it?

There is a sense in which every day is terra incognito.  A saying (attributed to various people) goes something like this: “Most things are hard to predict—especially things in the future.”  That lack of knowing what will in happen in any given day is pretty intimidating.

Humankind has struggled with such fears for a very long time.  It may be more intense these days, but I doubt it.  Times change, but our fear of the changing times does not.

Certainly, this was a struggle throughout the ancient Near East.  The Bible has a lot of “fear nots,” which suggests that there was a lot of fear coursing through the veins of ancient Israel.

The book of Deuteronomy is attributed to Moses, and is his last will and testament.  He is speaking to the nation of Israel which is just about to enter the Promised Land.  Moses repeatedly tells the people that he will not be going in.  The land and the future are terra incognito.  However, Moses assures them that God will go ahead of them, and that they don’t need to be afraid.

“Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the LORD will personally go ahead of you. He will be with you; he will neither fail you nor abandon you.” (Deuteronomy 31:8, New Living Translation)

I looked at the Hebrew for this verse.  It is interesting that the personal pronoun “he” is used a couple of times, even though it is not, strictly speaking, necessary.  Apparently, Moses wanted to be very emphatic in pointing out that God Himself would go ahead of the people.

But this verse tells Israel that God will not only go ahead of them.  God will also go with them.

It’s a wonderful picture: the God who goes before us and who goes with us.  God goes before in order to lead the way, but God also keeps us company, as we go.

I have to say, in all honesty, I have a difficult time believing that most of the time.  However, when I do believe it, I can face the unknown territory of the past, the present, and the future a lot more calmly.

 

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“Of Fathers Day and Regrets”

On June 18, 2018 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

Sunday, June 17, 2018

Father’s Day: Oh God, how I hate this day!

It is not that I hated my children or being a father.  But I hate the kind of father I was.

Of course, I helped to give them life and I helped keep them alive.  However, even there, my wife did all the heavy lifting.  I could have been, should have been, so much more.

Today, I sent my 12-step affirmation to my friend Will.  It goes like this:

Today, by God’s grace, I am celebrating the memory of my own earthly father, the “fatherhood” of all who have mentored me over the years, and God’s perfect fatherliness.  I am also encouraging other fathers today.

It is easy to say, but difficult to stay with these things.  Regret is easy—and deadly.  I am eaten up with regrets.

Will even Heaven heal me?

. . .

And the answer is a resounding “YES!”  I went for an early morning bike ride in my community just as the sun was coming up.  Several things occurred to me.

One was that regrets are absolutely useless.  They accomplish precisely nothing.  Less than nothing!  They sap my energy, and keep me from living a loving life.  Jesus cursed a fig tree that wasn’t producing any figs.  Apparently, uselessness is not the sort of thing that Jesus was willing to put up with.  Needing forgiveness?  Yes, Jesus could handle that!  Uselessness?  No!

Regrets are also dangerous.  As I was riding my bike, I thought to myself that regrets were a lot like looking back while riding a bike.  So, I tried an experiment.  While continuing to ride my bike, I looked back for a few seconds . . . and almost ran into a parked car.

Finally, regrets dishonor God.  Do I really think that God can’t forgive me?  The Old Testament indicates that God can and does.  The New Testament demonstrates this at the cross.  My regrets are, in fact, a form of atheism.

Then, I got ready and went to church.  The pastor talked about consumerism (he is against it), versus having “enough” (which he is for).  It was a good sermon, but the very last thing he said was what nailed me and, at the same moment, set me free.  He was talking about 4 things we could do in order to know that we had enough.

  1. We need to realize that the secret to contentment is Jesus.
  2. We need to stop looking around and start looking up.
  3. We need to focus more on the “Do’s” than the “Don’ts”.
  4. We need to stop living in the Shoulda-Coulda-Woudas.

I realized that I had been living with regrets all my life, and that it was time to kick them out and change the locks.  This has been done.

Of course, I have no illusions.  Regrets will try to sneak back in again.  However, I’ve decided that whenever they do, I’ll let Jesus answer the door.  He’ll know how to handle such intruders.  Who needs a 38, when you got Jesus?!

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DTEB, “YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO FOREVER RIGHT NOW!”

On April 3, 2018 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

I was whining around to my sweetheart about the fact that I haven’t read all the scholarly articles and books that I should have read.  Of course, the question that might be asked is this: Who has read all the scholarly books and articles?  However, this is cold comfort.  “The heart knows its own bitterness.” (Proverbs 14:10a)

Then, whether as a dodge or as a wise word, I added, “Well, there is eternity, I suppose.”

And the love of my life said, “And you don’t have to do forever right now!”

Now that was a wise saying!

I am not sure what Ecclesiastes 3:11 means when it says, “God . . . has planted eternity in the human heart . . . .”  But I do know that verse 11 comes after verses 1-10.  (See!  I really am pretty sharp!)  And verses 1-10 talk about how there is an appropriate time for all things.  God may have planted eternity in our hearts, but God has planted us in time.

A time for everything?  Well, not exactly.  Not even the Preacher of Ecclesiastes (who was the skeptics skeptic) said that there was a time for regrets about the past or worries about the future.

And I suspect that the author of Ecclesiastes would agree with my wife that “you don’t have to do forever right now.”

 

 

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DTEB, “EMPTYING MYSELF FOR CHRISTMAS”

On December 23, 2017 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

“O come to my heart, Lord Jesus,  There is room in my heart for Thee.”  (“Thou Didst Leave Thy Throne”)

“Let every heart prepare him room.”  (“Joy to the World”)

My heart is full this Christmas, but not necessarily full of good things.  I am full of regrets about my past.  Particularly, I regret how I treated (and did not treat) my family.  I have been selfish and controlling and sometimes even cruel.  Sometimes, I wonder if I have the regrets or if they have me.

And then there is anger toward those I feel have hurt me.  Strangely enough, these are often the same people that I have treated very badly.  Amazing how that works out, isn’t it!  And, of course, anger easily becomes resentment and self-pity.

And then, there are fears for the future.  I am old and my body is beginning to break down.  My mind is not quite as quick as it never was to begin with.    I worry.  I worry about my wife’s health.  I worry if I can be useful to God any more.  I worry about worrying.

So, I was out driving on this cold, rainy day, when I heard the hymn “Joy to the World.”  One phrase says, “Let every heart prepare him room.”

So, I emptied my heart out of all its regrets, all its anger, all its self-pity, all its worries.  I set out all this crap at the curb of my life, and said to Jesus, “Okay, Lord, there is room for you now!  Come on in!”

Guess what?  He did!

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“DYING EVERY NIGHT, REBORN EVERY DAY”

On June 6, 2017 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

 

“. . . I die daily” (Paul, 1 Corinthians 15:31).

“So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today” (Matthew 6:34, New Living Translation).

“And come what may at the break of each day
We all begin anew once more, we all begin anew” (The Moody Blues, “The Other Side of Life”).

I am toying with a very strange idea.  (For those of you who know me well, that probably doesn’t seem strange at all.)

Here is the idea: Every night, when I go to bed, I die.  Every morning, when I awake, I am reborn.

The reason why the notion of dying every night and being reborn every morning is helpful to me is this: I am in the import business.  I tend to import regrets from the past and worries about the future into my present.  My present is heavily mortgaged due to this.  I am not a particularly good business person.

I have a past, and it is not a very good one in many ways.  It is comforting to me to remember that I don’t have to remember all that stuff all the time.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  I am not saying that my past evils don’t have ongoing results.  They flat out do!  However, focusing on them all the time doesn’t help me to atone for them.  If the cross of Jesus Christ didn’t do that, I am a dead man, as dead as dead can be.  Remaining focused on past wrong-doing tends to lead me toward despair at an accelerating pace.  Furthermore, the more I focus on my past, the more likely I am to go back to it.

I was out on the Little Miami Bike Trail the other day, when I heard a father give his young son a very sound piece of wisdom.  I was passing this family, when this little guy looked back.  Of course, he steered into my path.  I was anticipating such a possibility, and hit the brakes.  As I went around the family, I heard the little guy’s dad say, “Don’t look back, or you’ll go the wrong way!”  The dad might as well have been talking to me.

When I start the new day with a new version of myself, I find it much easier to be at peace, and to get things done.  Perhaps there is a reason why we are given our moments little by little.  Maybe, just maybe, God or the Universe or someone/something set things up that way.

Have a good day, but be sure to die tonight!  However, I do hope that you’ll be reborn in the morning!

 

 

 

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“Fully Engaged with Life”

On May 1, 2017 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

My twelve-step sponsor made an intriguing comment a week or so ago.  He often does.  But this one has gotten stuck in my heart: “Be fully engaged,” he counseled me.

Sounded good, but I didn’t know the origin of the word “engage.”  So I did what modern people do when they don’t know something: I googled it!  Here is what I found out about the origin of the word.

“en·gage . . .

late Middle English (formerly also as ingage ): from French engager, ultimately from the base of gage1. The word originally meant ‘to pawn or pledge something,’ later ‘pledge oneself (to do something),’ hence ‘enter into a contract’ (mid 16th century), ‘involve oneself in an activity,’ ‘enter into combat’ (mid 17th century), giving rise to the notion ‘involve someone or something else.’

gage1

ɡāj/

archaic

noun

  1. 1.  a valued object deposited as a guarantee of good faith.

verb

  1. 1.  offer (a thing or one’s life) as a guarantee of good faith.”

So, being engaged involves putting yourself or something you value into something.  Being engaged means that I am not a bystander (innocent or otherwise) in my life.

I am sitting in a hotel room at Myrtle Beach, watching the waves coming ashore.  The sun is up.  It is, of course, easy to be engaged at this moment.  I am here with my sweetheart, enjoying a few days of vacation.  It is wonderful.

Yet, even here, it is easy to disengage.  After getting settled into our room last evening, my wife and I went for a walk along the beach.  It wasn’t crowded, but there were some folks enjoying the late afternoon.  There were kids playing in the sand, and some kids were wading in the shallows.  It was wonderful.

But, of course, me being me, I thought of our trips to the beach when our own children were little.  And, at that point, it was only a stone’s throw to regret for the dad I was and the dad I was not.  The past is sand in the cogs of being fully engaged.

The future can also mess with being fully engaged.  I worry.  I worry about retirement.  Will we have enough to live on, and enough to do some fun things?  I worry about health—my wife’s and my own.  I worry about how much longer I will be able to teach, to wait tables, to mow the grass.  I worry because the strawberries may be ripening (and rotting) while we are at the beach.  I worry about the fact that we only have a few days at the beach.  I worry about whether the weather will be nice.  I worry about . . .

Well, listing these worries is making me more worried (which is one more thing to worry about), so I’ll stop.  You get the point.

If the past and the future can interfere with being fully engaged, I now know what full engagement might look like.  It means being completely present.

I started this blog post at home, looking out my window on a grey April day. I was looking out the window, watching the maple seeds twirling toward their destiny.  I think that I was fully engaged.

I am finishing this post at the beach, with the sun streaming through my window.  I think that I am fully engaged.

Thanks, sponsor, for the very needful reminder!

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