accept the topsy-turviness of life as one who is accepted

After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. Job said:

“Let the day perish in which I was born,
and the night that said,
‘A male is conceived.’
Let that day be darkness!
May God above not seek it
or light shine on it.
Let gloom and deep darkness claim it.
Let clouds settle upon it;
let the blackness of the day terrify it.
That night—let thick darkness seize it!
let it not rejoice among the days of the year;
let it not come into the number of the months.
Yes, let that night be barren;
let no joyful cry be heard in it.
Let those curse it who curse the Sea,
those who are skilled to rouse up Leviathan.
Let the stars of its dawn be dark;
let it hope for light but have none;
may it not see the eyelids of the morning—
because it did not shut the doors of my mother’s womb
and hide trouble from my eyes.

Job 3:1-10; NRSVue

In this passage after the bottom completely falls out of Job’s life, he not only curses the day of his birth, but seems to wish the undoing of creation (scholarly essay; compare with Genesis 1:1-2:4a). I doubt that many of us have been in the extremity in which Job found himself in. But the story told might help us when we’re experiencing inevitable regret, oftentimes too hard on ourselves, but not excluding the sins and mistakes we’ve made.

Life is uneven, and there is so much in the mix, little we can actually control, outcomes- certainly not. We do well to rather than curse the darkness or even long for darkness, look for the light. But admittedly when one is in the dark hole and vortex of the storm, it’s hard not only to see straight or at all, but even harder to get out of it. One is sucked into something of a nightmare. This certainly seemed to be the case with Job. He did not yet have the perspective which he seemed to have gathered by the time the book is done.

Such a realization can help us when we feel attacked or are shuddering or are simply faced with life as it really is, with all of its dangers and unsettling questions. We do or at least I tend to put too much of a burden on myself, much harder on myself than I believe God is. And yet the story of Job as told certainly does not lend itself to a cozy Bible bedtime story. But the good in that is it helps us see something of an answer of faith, indeed, even in our questions, but arriving to something of a settled state, not with all our questions or maybe any of them answered, but something of a settledness in an unsettling world. And in the vision and good news of God in Jesus, a desire and passion for a good, just, hopeful settledness for all.

letting go of regrets

I sought the LORD, and he answered me
and delivered me from all my fears.

Psalm 34:4; NRSVue

Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal, but I press on to lay hold of that for which Christ has laid hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider that I have laid hold of it, but one thing I have laid hold of: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal, toward the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us, then, who are mature think this way, and if you think differently about anything, this, too, God will reveal to you. Only let us hold fast to what we have attained.

Philippians 3:7-16; NRSVue

There are few things which can plague us more than regret, especially when we face or understand the possible consequences or dangers due to our decision or perhaps indecision in the past. When it comes to sin, we should be regretful of the actual sin itself against others and against God and the inevitable harm such sin brings more than the consequences. If we’re sorry only because of the consequences, that’s not true Biblical repentance, it’s not genuine penitence.

Obvious sin and wrongdoing is certainly included, but my focus on this post is more on weaknesses, we could say due to sin in lacking trust in God or whatnot, but human weaknesses by which we made decisions that put us unnecessarily at risk maybe even to help someone else. That is precisely what happened to me some years back. I won’t go into the details of it, though if I ever wrote a memoir, I might do so. Or even for that matter, not understanding things we do now, and wanting to take back this or that decision, sometimes major decisions. Life is full of this, as we more and more come to understand firsthand in this life.

The psalmist above cried out to God, and God relieved the psalmist of their fears. We might think that’s too simple, but prayer matters because God is God. We can test that axiom and we’ll find it so. I’ve been helped again and again and again that way.

And Paul, after recounting how he excelled in something which actually was mistaken, his religious endeavor for what turns out to be actual loss rather than true gain, came to see that nothing else matters in comparison with the pursuit of Christ and Christ himself, knowing him and living in close fellowship with him and in him. No matter what else, nothing compares with that.

But instead of regretting his past, Paul was determined to press on, to pursue the upward calling of God in Christ. And Paul made it clear that this should be the goal of all Christ-followers, of the community of Jesus. That actually leaves no room for regret of the past. As Paul says, forgetting what is behind and pressing toward what is before.

For me this all takes discipline. I consider avoiding regret as a part of spiritual warfare. From a human point of view such regret and stewing does no good at all. But as humans it can be hard to let some things go. We certainly should learn from past mistakes and do better. But fretting over that not only does no good, but actually is harmful to that one and no help to anyone else.

Prayer and focus on Christ and God’s goal and reign in him can help us let go of inevitable past regrets we surely all have. Pray, forget what’s behind and press on ahead.

against second-guessing

Above all, brothers and sisters, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath, but let your “Yes” be yes and your “No” be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation.

James 5:12; NRSVue

James’s words are an echo of our Lord in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:33-37). I wish to focus on just one aspect of this warning. Simply the idea that we’re to say what we’ve decided one way or another and stick with it. That should be the rule, even though since we’re fallible humans for exceptional reasons we may need to take back our word.

But for the purposes of this post and I believe within possible application of this text I would like to suggest that we as sincere Christ followers who try to make the best decisions we can should quit second-guessing ourselves. By that I mean that we should cease beating ourselves over the head over past decisions we’ve made. “Hindsight is better than foresight” for sure, but that’s not going to help us in the present.

I think it’s a tactic of the enemy to get us to live in regret over big, little and everything in between decisions and we might say mistakes we’ve made. It’s completely inevitable in this world that there’s much we may not have done quite right. At least as a rule, nothing will be perfect in this life.

So we just need to settle down, and quit second-guessing ourselves for past and present decisions we’re making. Instead with prayer, we need to do the best we can, adjust ourselves along the way, but let our yes be yes and our no, no. Doing what we find good and right and helpful.

regrets

Do nothing without deliberation,
but when you have acted do not regret it.

Sirach 32:19

We live in an imperfect world in which second thoughts are practically a way of life. Especially if you’re like me. My wife points out to me that I tend to second guess everything. Automatically.

Sirach tells us that we need to deliberate, act, and then not regret it. Deliberation means we don’t just jump into something without due consideration. We are best to process whatever we’re considering, taking the necessary time, and in consultation with others.

Nothing at all is foolproof in this life, especially we ourselves. What is recommended at one point in time, may not be recommended years later. It’s a given that everyone will have to live with imperfection. Even when we do seem to make an optimal choice, in the end the unexpected can still happen. No one knows everything, and few of us will know everything there is to know.

The proverb addresses the present, so that we may well regret a past action which brings trouble in the present, at least troubling thoughts. But the fact of the matter is that when we made that decision once upon a time, even if our deliberation was lacking, we did so with what we knew at the time. So we have to let it go. After all, even if the deliberation was lacking, any major decision was made on the basis of what one had come to understand over time.

Deliberation, acting, and then no regret. Good to keep them together as we seek to carry on in wisdom in this life.

getting rid of “if only’s”

I like to put up a scriptural text since I find grounding in that, leading me to Christ and the good news in him along with specific directions for life. For this one I couldn’t come up with anything, except to think of Judas Iscariot hanging himself over his betrayal of Jesus, and Peter weeping bitterly when he denied the Lord three times. They both handled it drastically differently, but although Peter came out in the clear, it certainly wasn’t easy for him.

We probably have some pile of regrets, things we wished we would have done differently, or not done at all. When you think about it, there’s probably some small regrets each day, maybe a few bigger ones along the way, but we get caught up in this or that, and wish we would have done better, that something of the edge might be taken off of us. We can immediately repent, and count such times as learning opportunities, so that we might be aware of our deficiencies and work in God’s grace to do better and keep growing in goodness in Christ.

But to the topic. “If only’s” easily plague us. Yes, most certainly we can learn from them, and we should count that as a plus. After all, at the time we somehow thought or felt what we were doing was alright or good enough. We can at least take away from having failed, all the way from a miscue to a sin, that we can learn from that, and do better. Hopefully not just because of the pain experienced, though that’s entirely legitimate. But most importantly along with that, over concern out of the love of God to love God and others.

“What if’s?” or “If only’s!” are simply a waste not only of time, but even worse, a waste of our minds and hearts. We’re led down a track and put into a pit in which it isn’t easy to escape or get out of. Much easier to fall into it, then get out of it.

None of this will help us in the least. We certainly can’t time travel and reverse this or that, though I’m sure most all of us would be happy to do that if we could. It is not only wasted thinking, but harmful. It can lead us to a dark space devoid of grace. With God’s help and commitment to do better, we can find God’s grace and light to bring a peace that surpasses all our own understanding, lack of understanding, along with misunderstanding, but add to that, even what we think we understand all too well. And giving us even a cheer and joy that seems inexplicable, but right from the heart of God to our hearts.

We have to look at this as part of the spiritual warfare we’re engaged in. We have to commit ourselves to not going there, but with the realization that we can do this only by God’s help. Yet at the same time knowing too that it is we that have to do it. God isn’t going to do it for us. Although there are those strange occasions, and rare, when it does seem like God is doing it for us, so that what we do is nearly effortless.

God will help us to get past this, but let’s not expect it in a flash, or think we can just leave all of this behind in a day. It will be a part of our spiritual growing process, and ongoing spiritual warfare along the way. God will help us and see us through, as we trust and keep going in the right direction, sometimes confessing our failure to do so along the way, then getting up to move in the direction that God will give us. In and through Jesus.

dreams and thoughts of what could have been

Remember your creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come, and the years draw near when you will say, “I have no pleasure in them”; before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return with the rain; in the day when the guards of the house tremble, and the strong men are bent, and the women who grind cease working because they are few, and those who look through the windows see dimly; when the doors on the street are shut, and the sound of the grinding is low, and one rises up at the sound of a bird, and all the daughters of song are brought low; when one is afraid of heights, and terrors are in the road; the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper drags itself along and desire fails; because all must go to their eternal home, and the mourners will go about the streets; before the silver cord is snapped, and the golden bowl is broken, and the pitcher is broken at the fountain, and the wheel broken at the cistern, and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the breath returns to God who gave it. Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher; all is vanity.

Besides being wise, the Teacher also taught the people knowledge, weighing and studying and arranging many proverbs. The Teacher sought to find pleasing words, and he wrote words of truth plainly.

The sayings of the wise are like goads, and like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings that are given by one shepherd. Of anything beyond these, my child, beware. Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh.

The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God, and keep his commandments; for that is the whole duty of everyone. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil.

Ecclesiastes 12:1-14

“Fatigue makes cowards of us all.” Life makes philosophers of us all? Well, at least for those who take it seriously, though actually everyone has some philosophy meaning outlook on life. We can look back and see better, but mainly how God saw us through in spite of ourselves. And how hopefully we’ve come to see that what really matters is simple faith in and obedience to God. And to understand that our faith rests in the faithfulness of Christ, so that we follow together because of that. That can surely make all the difference in the long run.

If in your stronger more youthful decades you can put your all into following Christ in a community of followers of Christ, and seek to simply live in and from that reality, you will be truly blessed. Toward the end, the strength just isn’t the same, and the heart is often burdened down with the weight of other’s struggles, not to mention the inevitable troubles of life. And for most of us there’s regret and a wish that we could undo something or some things, and do other things all over again.

Lean on community in Jesus, and seek to be a follower of Jesus along with other followers of Jesus. Seek humility, above all just seek God’s love and will in Jesus by the Spirit, and with the desire to love God supremely and our neighbor as ourselves. We’re in this primarily not for ourselves, but for others. Together, Christ’s body for each other and to be light in the world. God will take care of things. And in the end will bring a good end, weaving everything somehow in that for good. Far beyond us, and I doubt we’ll ever fully understand it, but all will end well.

In and through Jesus.

accepting one’s lot in life

Moreover, when God gives someone…the ability…to accept their lot…—this is a gift of God.

Ecclesiastes 5:19

It may seem strange to read that someone in their 60’s, approaching retirement age struggles over accepting their lot in life, just how it turned out. But that’s me. After all, I have two academic degrees. Yet it turns out that I worked in a factory setting, for decades now, and where I’ll end Lord willing, albeit in a wonderful ministry until “retirement.”

I have struggled with “what ifs?” and “if onlys?” off and on. Those thoughts will probably hit me at least now and then the rest of my life, but hopefully they’ll ebb and become less and less as I learn more and more to simply accept and learn to embrace where my life is today.

There are some things that I can understand from my past, even important things to remember both in what became not helpful attitudes and actions. It’s not like I’m immune to such now. Not at all. But I believe by God’s grace that the Lord has helped me to come a long way, and in some respects 180 degrees from the worst or critically bad of that. And that wasn’t easy and took time. It’s one thing to confess one’s sin, it’s another to become a person who never would do such a thing as a rule, because their character has changed (1 Peter 4:1-2).

But there’s much of my past I don’t really understand. What comes to mind now is what some evangelical theologians have termed as “middle knowledge,” the idea, whether it has much merit or not, that God knows the entire range of possibilities in the life of the world, and specifically in an individual’s life, and moves accordingly. On the face of it, that makes plenty of sense to me, but in the end I want to remain in the testimony of Scripture along with what the church by the Spirit holds as truth. So when it comes to some theology, I just don’t know. But I have so many thoughts and questions, along with regrets. I have my own ideas, not that far removed from what they’ve been for many years, but I hold them more tentatively now. And I know in an important sense for me, none of that probably matters anymore. At best it’s water over the dam, or it could even be a mistaken notion on my part.

As my wife has told me time and again, there’s no sense rehashing the past, all the mistakes I’ve made, many the kind which most everyone makes. Do we trust God for the present as well as the future, even in spite of the past? That’s an apt question to ask.

We all have our limitations, along with the gifts God has given us. We might be able to get some help in this life to overcome or do better with illnesses we have, be they physical, or even in some measure mental. Such help should be considered a gift from God, to what extent it’s God-given. And above that, the blessing that is ours in Christ through the gospel. We find helpful for us the words of Scripture as we read it, prayerfully meditate on it, and study it.

The bottom line is to accept one’s lot in life as given from God. I think we can argue in the context of the passage quoted from Ecclesiastes above (click link to see NIV paragraph) that it’s about learning to live as humans, the humans God created us to be. And we learn from the gospels and the rest of the New Testament that we are restored into the fullness of humanity through the God-Human, Jesus (Romans 8:29; 2 Corinthians 3:18; 1 John 3:2).

Despite my past failures and above all, lack of faith, or thoughts that I wish I would have done this or that differently, I have to learn to let go of all of that entirely, and learn to accept and thankfully appreciate where I’m at, seeing the good in the present circumstances as God’s provision for us, for my wife and I, along with our ongoing natural concern for our family. And seek to be faithful in serving Christ in the place and with the service he has given me. In and through Jesus.

regrets

To regret something means that we should have known better and done something different. Surely everyone has regrets. Some of them can be so painful that we don’t want to go there, or we deal with it, and it’s something we can’t dwell on if we’re to remain Christian. But such matters can involve consequences that call it to mind. Other matters we can continue to be hammered on, because they can involve something which seems threatening to us, or has consequences to this day on a different, what people might call more practical level.

Paul’s well known words most people would pull out at first blush seem appropriate, then on further thought not, but when all is said and done, I think these words can help us:

Further, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord! It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again, and it is a safeguard for you.Watch out for those dogs, those evildoers, those mutilators of the flesh.For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh—though I myself have reasons for such confidence.

If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.

But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 3:1-14

I know, I know. There are things after the time we put our faith in Christ that we might well regret. Both commissions, as well as omissions. And rightfully so. I’m not so sure it’s wrong to regret; it can’t be regarding certain matters.

But what Paul is getting at here is our mindset, the one thing we do. And what he is pressing toward, as if a runner, involves all in the Christian life given to us in Jesus to which we’re both to aspire to and begin to live out.

Paul’s past was of the flesh, even though it seemed so good to him and to many others at the time. Whatever is of the flesh is what we leave behind. We live in the new way of the Spirit, of God’s calling, yes his heavenward calling to us in Jesus.

Are we going to get everything right through being committed and following through in the pursuit of this call? Of course not. It is both an individual and group endeavor focused on a Person, the Person of Christ. We will fail along the way, and will have to keep applying this truth of forgetting what is behind, and pressing forward. In the large and the small. Day after day, whatever the kind of day we face, whether a work day, a day of rest, or of relaxation and fun. We continue on toward the mark that God has set for us in and through Jesus.

making peace with one’s past

Awhile back I had to laugh even out loud when I heard a friend around my age say that looking back on his life, he had absolutely no regrets. I think if he would have explained it further, I would have been able to connect the dots to make sense of what he was saying, but given the fact that others were present and time was limited, I understood (or misunderstood) it to mean, no regrets about past decisions, period.

Of course hindsight is closer to 20/20 and we’ll always be learning more later, which will put some decisions which seemed right at the time in doubt. Life is complicated. As scripture says, we don’t know why we do the things we do at times, but the Lord can direct us in spite of that, or lead us on a path that is good and brings glory to him.

I have plenty of regrets, things I wish I would have done differently. I could have done better in most things simply by adhering to what I knew scripture said which in most cases would have helped me make a better decision. More times than not, I was moved by fear. Only a mature understanding of scripture and God’s way revealed in it could have helped me prevent some of the mistakes of the past. Other errors were over matters which I surely rationalized, but deep down I knew better. These are more like the obvious in your face actual sins.

Of course there’s always grace and forgiveness available in and through Jesus. The fallout from some past sins for some of us may well remain the rest of our lives. But God’s presence and peace can come and be ours in spite of what we may have to go through. I can’t help but think of the aftermath of David’s sin. When he repented, God forgave, but the consequence of his sin was grave for years to come. Even so, he died in peace, “a man after God’s own heart.” That was grace, grace, and more grace. That is the God who is, who we know and serve in and through Jesus.

And so we want to learn from our past, seek to do better in the present, and above all cast ourselves and our loved ones, indeed all of life on God and his mercy. Believing that the future is bright, that there is indeed hope for us and yes, for the world, in and through Jesus.

avoiding the “if onlys”

Life seems replete enough with regrets, sometimes over things we had little or no control in. Of course there are those matters in which we knew better. Or because of much weakness, we didn’t do well enough in. The “if onlys” hit us because we are left with the consequences of what happened or what we did or failed to do.

In the first place we don’t live in a fool proof existence. Invariably trouble will hit us; it’s just a matter of what the trouble is. We will avoid one problem if we could, only to discover another problem.

This is not to say that we can’t learn from others, especially those who are older, and  do better in some ways than they did thanks to their wise counsel. And we should take very literally the meaning of scripture. If scripture says don’t touch that or even go near it, because it’s hot and you’ll get burned, then it is foolhardy to think or act otherwise, even a little bit. I also can’t help but think that I would have avoided some dumb decisions and made better ones if I would have been more in God’s written word, scripture. I have always been in scripture for the most part in my Christian journey. But I could have done better, and want to continue to grow in that.

When it comes right down to it, the “if onlys” don’t help at all, but take away from the attention and energy we need to give to the Lord and God’s will, and life before us. Sure we can learn from mistakes, moral as well as the details of living. Of course provided that we confess our sins and by grace actually are in the process of change. Not that we can get beyond sinning in this life; it’s just that we learn to nip in the bud any sin rising up in us. Nor that we won’t keep making mistakes along the way. Sometimes it does seem that things are a crap shoot, that we simply, hopefully after prayer, even much prayer, make the best decision we can and then let it go at that, working with it.

In the end we have to believe that God is behind us and before us, all around us, to help us in this life in every way needed until he calls us from it. We have to learn to rest in that. The Spirit will confirm God’s word from scripture to us, that God cares for us. It is good to hold to this truth by faith as we read the scriptures, and it is good to pray and get God’s peace over whatever matter we’re praying about. I am referring not to issues which already have a clearcut answer in scripture, such as the necessity of being faithful to one’s spouse in heart and body. I am referring to difficult matters which we’re invariably faced with by simply living in the world, in this existence. God is faithful.

And so our “if onlys” can turn into prayers and remind us to turn our attention to the One who is our help and salvation in this life and beyond.