by Debbi Weeks
“I should’ve . . .” “If I would’ve . . .” “If I could’ve . . .” “If only . . . “ Do you live a life of regret? I want to live without regret, but the final results aren’t up to me. What I’ve found is that a life without regret is really a matter of trusting a sovereign God.
Let me share with you a couple of my favorite verses (do I say that every week?!): Romans 8:28-30 says,
“And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.”
God’s sovereignty means that we can live without regrets, because in His infinite knowledge, wisdom and power He uses everything (catch that! EVERYTHING – our sin, our mistakes, our gifts, our talents, our foolishness, our preventable illnesses, our hurts, our pains, our __________ - you can fill in the blank as long is it falls into the category of EVERYTHING or ALL! J) The good thing about all is it means all – not some, not even most, but ALL!
There is great freedom and peace in His sovereignty. We don’t have to figure it all out, we can leave that in the hands of our BIG God. One word of warning - don’t let your freedom and knowledge of God’s sovereignty become an excuse to sin. Romans 6:1-2 says,
“What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?”
But know, God’s sovereignty is bigger than our messes! When we’ve trusted our eternity to Him we can trust our earthly life history to Him too. There’s no regret there!
Father God, I praise You for Your sovereignty. I praise You that You can work all of my “things” together for good.
I confess that I sometimes live in regret forgetting that You are so much more and in control of my “things.”
Thank you for this tapestry of my life’s “things” that You are weaving together to be conformed to the image of Your Son.
Please allow me to live without regret, recognizing that in Your sovereignty Your plans will not be thwarted.
*I need to reference Loving God with all your Mind by Elizabeth George again this week. Her chapter on “Thinking the Truth . . . about the Past and the Present” was my springboard for the thoughts I shared today.
1 comment:
I can't believe there are not more comments here all ready! Oh, how I wish Christians would get this more, including myself Debbie! I would put "personality" in that blank. I learned a lot lately about how God gave me my personality for His glory and that was life changing to me. I did a bible study with the ladies of my church on Jerry Bridges book: "Trusting God Even When Life Hurts". I almost didn't do the study because I thought "hey, I just lot my dad in what seemed like a sharp corner and 'bam!' he was gone, I think I'm the expert on trusting God when life hurts." Fortunately God knew I had more to learn and literally pushed me to go the day before the study started. I am one of those people who wishes I was more like this christian, or that christian and began to hate my personality and wonder why God didn't make me like them! Wow, how wrong that was, and how idolizing. See, my personality didn't mesh with homeschooling too well and that killed me! I wanted to be awesome at it, but I couldn't. It took a long time to realize the freedom of letting God glorify himself through me in the way He wants to using what he gave me...me. The Newsboys "free" song began to mean a lot to me during this time of releasing these bondage chains.
I am more and more convinced that our enemy, the devil, wants us to be totally discouraged by our failures because when we are discouraged we are unproductive for the Lord. When we trust God, we have the energy to move forward instead of sitting and arguing with him as to why we could not have done better. After all, then we could feel good about ourselves right? Well, maybe it's not about me feeling good about me. Maybe it's about beeing small so He looks bigger.
My favorite part of the passage you used is "he also glorified". He will glorify our journey but not for our glory, for His!
Thanks for this little tidbit of truth!!
I may link to here...I really liked it.
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