How Do You Get Out of Regret?

No one is human who is free from regret. The cause may be a mistake or failure that continues to haunt you. Perhaps you also regret not doing the things you should have been able to do. Or, you made the wrong decision, and as a result harmed or endangered other people, especially those you love. Regret is a human thing, because we are not perfect.

However, remaining trapped in mistakes or living under the shadow of the past is not healthy. Why? Because God does not want you to be a prisoner of the past.

So, how do you deal with regret in the right way?

Regret That Leads to Repentance

Do you remember the regret experienced by Judas and Peter? Both of them made major mistakes, and both of them regretted them. Yet they chose different paths. Judas remained trapped in worldly regret, while Peter chose godly regret.

For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of this world produces death. – 2 Corinthians 7:10

Judas, who regretted handing Jesus over so that He was sentenced to death, decided to hang himself (Matthew 27:3-5). Peter, who denied Jesus  three times before He was crucified, also regretted it, but that regret led him to repentance.

Did Jesus want Judas, who regretted what he had done, to end in death? Certainly not. Jesus wanted Judas to regret it, but that regret should have led him to salvation, not death.

The same is what Jesus wants from you. Does your regret lead you to repentance? Or instead, do you punish yourself so severely that you cannot forgive yourself?

The form of regret God wants is a torn heart. In other words, a broken heart, not actions that destroy yourself.

Tear your heart and not your garments, and return to the LORD your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and He relents from sending disaster. – Joel 2:13 

If so, what can you do?

Let Go of the Past, Accept Reality

His Word: "Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old! – Isaiah 43:18  

Regret is like a prison that keeps you from getting out of the past and makes it hard to enjoy life right now.

Yes, the mistakes you made are real. What has happened will become history. You cannot rewrite your life You also cannot correct or undo what has already passed.

What you can do is let go of the past, learn from the past, and live in the present.

… and said to them, “If only we had died by the LORD’s hand in the land of Egypt, when we sat by pots of meat and ate bread to the full! For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” – Exodus 16:3

After leaving Egypt and experiencing hunger on the journey toward the land of Canaan, the Israelites remembered the past. They longed for the abundance of food in Egypt, even though they lived in slavery. Rather than looking to the future and move on, they instead wanted to return to the past as slaves. - Yet if they had remained in Egypt at that time, they would never have witnessed God’s spectacular display through the ten plagues (Exodus 7-11) and the miracle of the Red Sea (Exodus 14:15-31). What is more, they would have continued living in slavery all their lives.

What about you today? Do you want to keep being a slave to the past all your life?

To erase regret, let go of the past and accept reality. Make your mistakes or failures valuable lessons, then get ready to face the future with God.

Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it yet. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus. – Philippians 3:13-14   

Turn Regret into Gratitude

Have you ever felt, “Why was life so much easier back then? Now everything is so hard.” Or you think, “How beautiful the past was. If only I could go back to that time and live it over again.”

Sentences like these are words of complaint, which will only keep you trapped in regret.

Do not say: "Why were the former days better than these?" For it is not from wisdom that you ask this. – Ecclesiastes 7:10 

Do not think that the past is always more beautiful than the present. Ecclesiastes says, “For everything there is a season, and for whatever is under heaven there is a time (Ecclesiastes 3:1).”

Rather than living in regret, it is better to turn that regret into gratitude, as Joseph did:

As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring about what is happening now, the saving of many lives. – Genesis 50:20  - Give thanks for the past, because nothing happens by chance. If God worked in the past, God is still working in the present. The past has shaped you, trained and refined your person and your character into who you are now.

Imagine if you had never made mistakes. You would never learn anything, would you? You would remain the same person year after year.

Your hands have made me and formed me; give me understanding, that I may learn Your commandments. – Psalm 119:73 

So, do not live in regret any longer! Bring your regret to repentance and turn it into gratitude. Take heart, you can do it!

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