Regrets, I've had a few, but then again ...

Notwithstanding the title … “Regrets, I’ve had a few, but then again …” this is NOT a message giving homage to Sinatra, Elvis, or anyone else that’s sung “My Way.”  Neither is it a tribute to the philosophy espoused by that very famous song.  Frankly, I think the mentality it describes is nothing short of foolishness.  To put it plainly, whether or not someone did life “their way” has nothing to do with the success, impact or fulfillment of their life.  Quite the opposite, I believe.

My reading this week supports this perspective.  Reading through Ecclesiastes 1 – 7, Psalm 80 – 86, and Nehemiah 4 – 10, I was particularly moved by several passages in Ecclesiastes.  The book is generally a self-reflective review of a life that was clearly lived “my way” from the point of view of Solomon.  It’s also a book that recounts a life of regrets.  To me, these are indelibly tied together … a life lived “my way” is inevitably bound to become a life full of regrets.  From Ecclesiastes, here are a few examples of Solomon’s conclusions on the matter …

Ecclesiastes 1:16 -18

I said to myself, “Look, I am wiser than any of the kings who ruled in Jerusalem before me. I have greater wisdom and knowledge than any of them.”  So I set out to learn everything from wisdom to madness and folly. But I learned firsthand that pursuing all this is like chasing the wind.  The greater my wisdom, the greater my grief.  To increase knowledge only increases sorrow.

Ecclesiastes 2:9-11

So I became greater than all who had lived in Jerusalem before me, and my wisdom never failed me.  Anything I wanted, I would take. I denied myself no pleasure. I even found great pleasure in hard work, a reward for all my labors.  But as I looked at everything I had worked so hard to accomplish, it was all so meaningless—like chasing the wind. There was nothing really worthwhile anywhere.

Ecclesiastes 5:10-11, 15

Those who love money will never have enough. How meaningless to think that wealth brings true happiness!  The more you have, the more people come to help you spend it. So what good is wealth—except perhaps to watch it slip through your fingers!  We all come to the end of our lives as naked and empty-handed as on the day we were born.  We can’t take our riches with us.

Solomon had it all.  Anything he wanted, he could just ask for it, purchase it, demand it, etc.  He literally had access to darn-near anything on earth.  Remember, he was a king.  He had more wealth, possessions, women, devotees, and servants in his life than most of us could fathom.  He was also granted an overwhelming portion of wisdom at the outset of his reign.  Not too long thereafter, it appears he shed that wisdom for material things.  No wonder he lived with such regret.

He recounts a life spent trying to find fulfillment … not denying himself a thing.  He pursued wisdom.   He chased partying, drinking, philandering.  He did all he possibly could to fill his life on his terms.  Nothing worked.  It would appear he died empty, sad, dissatisfied, depressed, and disappointed.  You can read Ecclesiastes and see his account for yourself, pretty plainly.

It’s said that you never see a hearse with luggage racks on it, and that no one on their death bed wishes they’d spent more time at the office.  But I think neither of these sayings accurately depicts the fact that many still die with a firm grip on wishing they could do things differently.  How does this happen?

I think regret is born out of a life lived “my way” rather than God’s way.  It’s the essence of where sin entered our world to begin with, all the way back to Adam and Eve falling because of the desire to have the knowledge of good and evil, to be like God.  No different today … as I look back on my life, most of the pain and difficulty I experienced was self-induced.  Poor choices, always in contrast to the way God wants us to live, invite more and more regret into our time here on earth.  What makes it worse is that we persist in these choices throughout life, even after we decide to surrender our lives to the Lord.  There’s an innate tendency that we all have to choose our own way, to talk ourselves into the notion that somehow we know more than He does, or that we know more what is better for us than He does.  “Next exit … REGRET.”

What areas of your (our) life are budding with future regret.  Where are you (we) making choices that will only ever give birth to regret.  No doubt we all have them.  If you’re having a hard time finding them, we can look to the places where we are choosing our way rather than God’s way.  Let’s choose less than what He wants for us.  We don’t want to be someday breathing our last knowing that the breath we’re taking is weighed down by the burden of wishing we could have done things differently when we had the chance.  Let’s choose NOW to remedy our own frailties and pride … let’s decide that regret won’t be the badge of “honor” on our sleeve at the end of our life.  Let’s not sow pride and reap regret.  In Solomon’s words, doing so is only chasing the wind.  It’s meaningless.  It increases sorrow.

Let’s ask the Lord in prayer this week to reveal to us any areas where we are fundamentally choosing regret.  To show us anywhere we are choosing our pride rather than God’s blessing.  Anywhere that we say “my way” and not God’s way.

No regrets!

MR