Dealing with the "if-onlys" of life

Forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward

to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize

of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:13-14, NKJV).

The “if-onlys” of life haunt us, don’t they? And we all have them.

If only I’d turned right instead of left….

If only I’d said yes instead of no….

If only I’d been kinder…braver…wiser….

But despite the fact that we all have “if-onlys,” none of us gets a “do-over.” What’s past is past, and though we may need to apologize or try to set right what we did wrong, we cannot change our original choices.

I was pondering some of my own “if-onlys” this morning when God said, “Give them to me—all your ‘if-onlys’—and then I can use them to fulfill My purposes.”

Wow. I hadn’t thought of that before. I understood that holding on to and dwelling on my “if-onlys” was self-destructive, but it hadn’t occurred to me that I was preventing God from redeeming them as only He can.

Death, divorce, illness, financial or health challenges—they all carry the potential of “if-onlys,” and once the choices are made, we can’t change them. But we can choose to turn loose of them, to admit our inability to fix them and hand them over to God, who stands waiting—His nail-scarred hands outstretched—to take them from us and bring good out of evil, healing from pain.

It’s time to forget the things that are behind and press forward to the “upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Please join me in answering that call today.