Regret or Repentance: Your Choice

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(c) Deborah Evans


Sometimes, the past must be put aside before you can look upward and look forward. The past cannot be erased. The past is part of your history and your identity. Just as the histories of nations and organizations cannot be erased, your personal history cannot be erased. Our histories and past decisions have created our current life experiences. If we don't like where we are, we can choose regret or repentance.

That decision is yours to make. That decision determines if your past becomes a curse or a blessed lesson.

Regret is a useless pursuit, one that blocks you from seeing present or future options and opportunities. Regret is a backward looking action, one that doesn't give you room to learn from mistakes or help and guide others on a forward path.

Repentance, on the other hand, allows you to see what is true, what actually happened, find or give or accept forgiveness, and examine why things are the way they are. Repentance is the acceptance of mistakes made, priorities misplaced, and wrong actions taken. With the choice of repentance, you are can realistically choose and act in a new and better way.

Throughout the Bible, God calls individuals and nations to repent (change their minds and walk with God) in order to follow a new and better way. The Bible also tells us the histories of people and nations refusing repentance and rushing down the paths of injustice, unholiness, greed, and self-imposed and self-celebrated ignorance.

It's a choice anyone can make. It can be made at any time or in any place. Regret or repentance. 

What's your choice?

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