REGRETS

Is it bad to have regret?

I'm sure everybody has moments of regret. I regret not turning off the tv and revising my homework. I regret going out late the night before an exam. I regret not reading my bible in the morning and ending up not reading the bible.

These kinds of decisions- small, and only slightly significant, seem okay to have. At least the regret should push you to choose more wisely in future should you have to make a similar decision.

BUT there appears to be another kind of regret that people may consider useless, and perhaps even detrimental to one's sanity, if one were to entertain. For example, I regret marrying the man I chose to marry. Are you allowed to have these kinds of regret? Presumably, you have valid reasons behind why you have such a regret. In my opinion, things that count include your husband committing adultery and your husband beating you. They do not include things like, husband's failure to wash the dishes on command. So what does one do with such regrets? I mean, for the above two, I would go with divorce. But what about situations which are slightly more blur, like I regret marrying my husband because I feel our marriage is not going very well, and we are not really good partners for one another in terms of temperament, character etc. 

I regret not being around when my child was growing up. What do you do with such a regret?? And how do you know you will regret it, until it has occurred to you? When in an emergency situation, e.g. a doctor saving lives, thus not being able to be at home much, what you're doing at that point seems very justifiable. And when your kid is grown up, can you really say, no, I shouldn't have been doing what I was doing, I should have been watching my child grow up and enjoying all those moments? 

As such, one answer which comes to my mind would be, who are you trying to please? 

Jeremiah 33:3 says 

‘Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.’

I find that if one is seeking to please God, I trust He guides our path in a way that allows us to show our love to everyone adequately. I may not be around for everyone moment of my child, but my child will know that I love him, and that there are many in the kingdom of God who love him, and most of all that God loves him. In other cases, I trust God gives us the wisdom to deal with the situation, and that everything is still in His hands. It may not be smooth sailing, but He is there and God over all. 

As much as this sounds like escapism, I would like to justify that every encounter in which we look to God is a great struggle- from making that decision to call to God, to having the sensitivity to listen to what He is saying, and having that strength to persevere in the face of adversity, and to obey in every circumstance despite whatever logic or reason the world may throw at you.