I'd like to build on the previous messages about quality time and share briefly on regret, ambition and current experience.
For today, I'd like to focus on regret:
The Apostle Paul makes the following remark about his time on Earth:
2 Timothy 4:6-8
... the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing.
The story of Apostle Paul reflects a life of someone who made wrong choices but later made up for it by living the rest of his life for God's will and purpose. He didn't dwell on his past mistakes to the point where it made him ineffective going forward. He didn't dwell on it long enough or meditate on it long enough to allow him to lose momentum, courage, ambition and faith for all God still required of his life. It's amazing because he makes the above declaration in full knowledge of his past mistakes but his faith in the mercy, forgiveness and love of God enables him to move forward, to fulfil what he needs to, and to run the race God set before him - to the point where he has full assurance that he's fought the good fight, finished the race and kept the faith and is now looking forward to his eternal reward and dwelling place with God.
For me, one of my biggest goals is to be able to say something similar where I can reach an old age and not have any regret about how I lived my life on the Earth for God's glory. I would want to have the assurance that even though it may not have been perfect, even though there would've been moments where I was disobedient to the word of God and not followed His guidance or counsel, etc. that in the midst of that, I would still feel as if I've made the most of my time spent on the Earth in desiring and attempting to be and do all that He desired of me.
I'm sure that from time to time people live with the regret of decisions that they wish they had made or some that they wish they hadn't made - either way, they live with regret and with the thought of, "what if I did this?", "if only I had done this", etc. The reality however is that the past is in the past, we cannot change what just happened a minute ago, it's gone, it's past, it can never be redone. This is the reality of time and what's more important is how we choose to respond to our perspective on time - Knowing that we cannot change the past but can only focus on what lies ahead serves as an encouragement to be better/do better going forward.
One of the ways we can ensure that we live without regret is by reflecting on our current experiences (across various areas of our lives) and assess what can be done better (I'll share more on this later). A question I believe that can help with this reflection is asking the following:
"Let's say your future self could return to the past and they appeared to you today, what would they say to you? What advice or encouragement would they give you? What would they tell you to stop doing, start doing and keep doing?"