Regrets - A Letter to Myself

“Phillipians 3:13-14, “… I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do; forgetting what lies behind and reaching for what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

Three times in the past week I have come in contact with 3 different letters people have written to their self, so I thought I would give it a try.

Hey Jeff,

It’s me… yourself. Dude… how are you going to deal with all these regrets? Can’t you just chalk them up to experience and move on?

That sounds great to me, but how do I do that? I certainly can’t turn back time and change a thing.

(24 hours later… some tears… a replaying of all the regrets – of the decisions of the past that I suffer from today… choices 20 years ago affecting my health, wealth, and happiness.)

Why haven’t you looked at these regrets before from a different perspective? Why have you allowed decisions with education, career, family, finances, and personal health choices to continue in your mind as a cancer eating at the possibilities of today? Why do you accept the regrets just being there reminding you constantly that… if you would have… then you could have? Why have they never been address as the foreign bodies of thought that they are?

Self… today is a new day. You are not a collection of regrets. You are not doomed to repeat the past. Yesterday has nothing to do with living today. It is time to stop missing the Platinum Amex and start getting the most out of today. You have not wasted the opportunity. The opportunity is waiting for you today. And it is bigger, and better than any opportunity of the past.

So what if you have lost millions. If you made them once, you can make them again. But will you allow the mistakes of past to stay in the past? Will you allow the regrets to be the experience for tomorrow? Will you trust God today instead of thinking you missed your shot at His overwhelming blessings? And while your at it quit asking Him to restore it... it's gone... there's a new plan.

Self… do you know what these regrets are that you carry around in your brain every day? They are a cancer, eating away at the productivity and enjoyment, and joy of TODAY. You have the education, the family, social, and spiritual upbringing to be a success… not in someone else’s eyes, not just in God’s eyes, but in your own eyes. You want to leave for your children an inheritance? Time to get busy creating a new one for them, and stop regretting what is lost. You don't need a new career, a new job, a new home... you need to see that all of that is perfectly what you need for today.

The money is gone, the time is spent, but there is more money, there is more time, make the most of it. Stop punishing yourself. The punishment is over.

Why do you think Josh Turner’s song keeps playing over and over in your head? Time is love. Work hard, play hard, love hard, live hard, enjoy much, be filled with joy. Get your lazy butt off the couch and do something. Life is not about “if.” Life is about living and living is about loving. And loving does not take money.

Why do you think you constantly have dreams of flying? It’s time to fly! Like Josh says, “time to fly before one more moment gets by.” “’I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.’” (Jeremiah 29:11)

Time to go out and grab a hold of those plans, and let go of the regrets. If you are going to reach up, then you have to let go of what is holding you down.

You want to preach scripture to someone. Here’s one to preach to yourself. “Phillipians 3:13-14, “… I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do; forgetting what lies behind and reaching for what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Get to reaching upward boy!