Like a snowflake or a fireworks display – life is but a mist that appears and then vanishes (James 4:14) . . . just a moment, then the moment’s gone. This is likely why those who have had a near-death experience, if only briefly, catching a glimpse of their own fragile and ephemeral mortality – tend to take inventory of everything and everyone in their life. Of course, nothing has actually changed . . . except for their perception of their own life. It’s not so much that they didn’t already intellectually know how brief their life was – it’s just that, now they have participated in the knowing of its brevity.
As someone keenly aware of the fact that I am closer to the end than I am from the beginning – I have become uniquely attuned to the preciousness of the time that remains. And this is a perfect example of how our relationship to time inescapably evolves . . . whether we’re paying attention or not. The longer we live, the more we are afforded a greater opportunity to participate in knowing what actually gives life value. But invariably such a knowing becomes fraught with the land mines of regret — ever attempting to ambush the life we still have left to live.
For the young, regret is viewed as nothing more than a bogeyman cautionary tale of parental concern. And for the old, it’s more like a cluttered closet full of everything that’s been left broken and unresolved. The former hasn’t lived long enough to sense the accumulative effect, while the latter has simply lost count. So it would seem that in a fallen world, regret is an inevitability – no one gets to escape it, or the un-knowing of reasons for it. Because no amount of perpetuated existential denial, or self-affirming self-talk spin, can keep you from the facts of your own life experiences. So then, what are we to do with regret?
If there’s a silver lining to regret — it would be that our experience of regret clearly indicates that some measure of humble retrospection has occurred. For it is only in our humility that we become honest enough to confess our real need for God. In this regard, regret is not only a reminder of what path to avoid but is also an invitation to remember the better path – the one our feet were originally made to tread. And this is underscored in 1 John 1: 7-9, which ties together “walking in the light, as he is in the light” (v7) with “if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins” (v9). So it could be said that regret can actually be our first step back into the light.
But what are we to make of all our lost and wasted time? If every moment we are given is the very currency of our life – then how we spend our time, arguably becomes an investment. And it’s this thought that invariably becomes the black hole of regret we end up struggling with – hoping to escape. We cannot recover the time we have lost – but the value of that time can be redeemed. For our hope is not confined by the limitations of time and space, rather it is anchored in the lover of our soul, the Lord Jesus Christ ever redeeming all things unto himself. It is in this timeless redemption where all of our lost moments are collected and given a new meaning, a new value – in the economy of God’s grace.
“This life is waiting for you to surrender all you are — this life”
