Psalm 25:7 (ESV) Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember me, for the sake of your goodness, O Lord!
In a group of men I know and love, we were discussing regrets: are they good or are they bad? We all have them. They help make us who we are today. As a friend said, “The reason we regret these things is because we’re not like that anymore.” We’re closer to where God would have us.
Sometimes our regrets drive us back to God:
Jeremiah 3:22-25 (ESV) “Return, O faithless sons; I will heal your faithlessness. ”Behold, we come to you, for you are the Lord our God. 23Truly the hills are a delusion, the orgies on the mountains. Truly in the Lord our God is the salvation of Israel. 24 “But from our youth the shameful thing has devoured all for which our fathers labored, their flocks and their herds, their sons and their daughters. 25 Let us lie down in our shame, and let our dishonor cover us. For we have sinned against the Lord our God, we and our fathers, from our youth even to this day, and we have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God.”
I’m an old man now. I’ve passed three quarters of a century. Billy Graham was asked near the end of his life what surprised him most about life. He said “Its brevity.” That holds so true for those of us who are older. It seems like just the other day our children were young, life was a challenge we were anxious to face together, and our love was new.
I’m happy to say God has a special place in His heart for the old, and much of our usefulness comes from the things we now regret. I saw a tee shirt a while back that said “The reason I’m old and wise is because God protected me when I was young and stupid.” There is a lot of truth in that shirt. The foolish things we did that we now regret are things we can use today to help others younger than we who are facing the same sorts of problems and temptations.
Job 12:12 (ESV) Wisdom is with the aged, and understanding in length of days.
Prov. 16:31 (ESV) Gray hair is a crown of glory; it is gained in a righteous life.
So, now that we’ve received wisdom from our regrets and faith from God’s deliverance from the foolish acts that cause our regrets, what’s next?
With that in mind, I was especially struck by Joshua 19:49-50 where our pastor spoke of the land divisions of the promised land to the tribes of Israel:
When they had finished distributing the several territories of the land as inheritances, the people of Israel gave an inheritance among them to Joshua the son of Nun. 50 By command of the Lord they gave him the city that he asked, Timnath-serah in the hill country of Ephraim. And he rebuilt the city and settled in it.
Why is this important?
Joshua was almost 90 when he “retired” and began to rebuild Timnath-serah (translated: “A double portion”) and died at age 110.
Joshua 24:29-31 (ESV) After these things Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died, being 110 years old. 30 And they buried him in his own inheritance at Timnath-serah, which is in the hill country of Ephraim, north of the mountain of Gaash.
31 Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua and had known all the work that the Lord did for Israel.
Note that Joshua didn’t really retire. His life reflecting his Lord inspired the people to follow God during his leadership and even impressed those who carried the torch thereafter.
People are self-involved. We go to church to be fed. We go to prayer gatherings to thank God for what he has done in our lives. Joshua wasn’t an example of that as much as he was an example of reaching out to others.
Years ago I had a pastor tell me I had been a Christian for some time and should see church as first a place to minister and only second as a place to be fed.
May the regrets in our lives build the character in our old age to inspire others to see God’s grace and urge us on to continue the work God has begun in us.
Believers Armed and Dangerous 