Bury the Regrets

Good Thursday morning! The Way stands beside you; walk the path prepared for you. The Truth will guide you; seek your destiny in Christ. The Life is given for you and to you, and waits for you to arrive in eternity. Before we begin this journey, we have a little thing to take care of that may be slowing us down a bit; perhaps preventing that first step of our new life. As we who are called to Christ came to surrender our lives to Him, we arrived, figuratively speaking, at the foot of the cross. As each of us arrives there to gaze upon the instrument of our salvation, we are invited to set aside the burdens we have carried through much of this life. The idea is to give up this burden to Jesus and take His yoke that is easy and His burden that is light. However, we have a bad habit of clinging to that old heavy burden of ours. Furthermore, all around the cross are some holes, one for each of us. These holes are for the burying of our regrets, and some of us will arrive at the cross with many. We do not hide from the past, or deny that we did these things that cause our regrets. We do not ignore the lessons learned and the wisdom gained from hard experience. But it is time to give up the writhing shame and guilt we feel from these memories.

The time has come in our new lives to look to Christ as our guide and shining light. The darkness of the past recedes; the days of sin are washed away. In this time that we live, should a president or prime minister take the wife of a loyal soldier to his bed, we might call for his resignation. But if that same elected official caused the soldier to be killed through treachery on the front lines of battle, we might call for his removal from office and a sentence of prison time. However, David remained king of Israel even after the prophet Nathan confronted the king and exposed the sins. What is the deal here? God appointed David to the throne of Israel and had Samuel anoint the young shepherd boy as king. Presidents and prime ministers are elected by the people and are removed by the people's representatives. David sought God's forgiveness and acknowledged that he had sinned against God. David could have been frozen up with shame and regret, abandoned his throne and duty, or perhaps taken his own life from the guilt of his sin. David chose instead to accept the forgiveness of the Lord and got on with his new life. The effects of his sin remained and would haunt him later in life, but he did not succumb to the ashes of the past. We should remember often, perhaps constantly, that God's forgiveness is perfect. We do not need to bring up the old sins and submit to the shame and regret. We need to take up the forgiveness of Christ and live in Him. How could David have ruled a nation if he got up each morning wishing in shame that he hadn't done such a terrible thing? His wife, Bathsheba, could have been a constant reminder of his sin, but he chose instead to love her. In time, David and Bathsheba bore Solomon, whose reign was the glory of Israel. At least until the glorious reign of a king yet to come, but that is a story for another day.

We do have some quite regrettable memories in our past. But God can grow flowers of blessing from the rotten soil of our past. It may be that without the decay of our past sins the flowers would not have the lovely colors God will cause to shine in them. As those flowers bloom in our lives, no one will bother to look at the soil. Put aside the past, live in the present in Christ.

Enjoy the day!
Bucky