Regret, we see it all around us. Regret can be all-consuming. Then there is the lingering regret. You keep focusing on "what might have been." We all have done somethings that we feel regretful about. I, myself had lived in the land of regret for years.
Regret will have you feeling that you are in a permanent and dense place, surrounded by many opportunities for disappointments, of all kinds. It's like living in a caged city with borders of bemoaning and complaining. The further you enter into the city, the further you find yourself sinking in the never ending quicksand of contrition.
In the City of Regret, the sun is always beaming down rays of lamentation. The atmosphere, instead of being calm, is now full of toxic anguish. Even the wind is blowing a fierce breeze of remorse. Instead of walking on green grass of happiness and contentment, you find yourself trolling in a mixture of sorrow, lined with sidewalks full of worry and self-accusations.
As you continue your troll through the city, each little boutique appears to display a collection of "woe is me," all decorated with a collage of "eat your heart out" wrapping paper. It appears that you are engulfed in a season of "singing the blues," because of a self-loathing reason of self-condemnation.
Living in the City of Regret have you discombobulated, because you messed up and started engaging in self-destructive behavior. Mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes. Mistakes comes with the overwhelming feeling of guilt. Shame. Self-condemnation. Humiliation. But you can't let it go. You have not learned to forgive and forget. So, you continue to live in the City of Regret.
Living in the City of Regret, where the streets appears to be paved with bitterness. The street lights continues to illuminate a never ending pain of heartache. Even the passing cars are painted in hues of affliction. The traffic lights are flashing, woe for green, shame for red, and the yellow caution light means guilt.
It appears that you can't escape. When you look up at the skyscrapers, they appear to be screaming, "go ahead and cry over spilled milk."
Living in the City of Regret, you punish yourself for your past. You feel that only if you could make up for the wrong that you did. You walk through life, each day feeling less than. You call yourself a loser. No good. You lived chained down to your past, holding on to hurts and grudges.
Living in the City of Regret, is full of dissatisfaction, grief, and self-accusation. It is simply painful and annoying. Your every hour is full of heartbreak. All you desire is comfort, contentment, happiness, satisfaction, and relief. But somehow these feelings keep alluding you.
Living in the City of Regret, you feel stuck in the rut of your past failures. You have this secret pain that no one knows about. You are too shamed to talk about it for the fear of being judged. You are suffocating with negative emotions. These things gnaw away at your joy. They kill your quality of life and destroy your satisfaction of life.
Are you tired of living in the City of Regret? Then, let go and let God. The enemy has been ecstatic about his hold on you. How? He wanted you to reflect on your past failures and mistakes. He wants you to feel like there is not way out of this situation. It's like being stuck in quicksand, the more you wiggle, the deeper you sink. Regret is a way for Satan to get inside of your head. The Scripture tells us, "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour" (1 Peter 5:8).
While you are living in the City of Regret, you have been giving Satan power over your life. It's relocation time. It's time to uproot and move from the darkness into the light. The Marvelous light.
Jesus can help you. Free yourself from the bondage of holding it all in. Tell Jesus all about it. Forgiveness starts with being honest about the good and the bad. Jesus knows about it anyway. He is just waiting for you to have a conversation with Him. He can help you with your relocation and provide you with an excellent relocation package.
Jesus knows that we are imperfect people. He knows that we will make mistakes. He knows that we will hurt people sometimes and they will sometimes hurt us. He knows that we will have regrets. He knows that it is part of living in an imperfect world.
The Bible is full of people who had made many mistakes. God inspired man to share these stories, so we could see that we are all subject to mistakes. God knows everything beforehand. He already knew we would sin, so He is not surprised when we do.
We oftentimes look back on some of the decisions we made and regret our choices. Our regrets are the result of either a foolish choice or a sinful choice. When regret continues to haunt you, you can let it consume your life or you can lay it at the feet of Jesus, and leave it there.
"For God sometimes uses sorrow in our lives to help us turn away from sin and seek eternal life. We should never regret his sending it. But the sorrow of the man who is not a Christian is not the sorrow of true repentance and does not prevent eternal death" (2 Corinthians 7:10).