Shoulda, woulda, coulda

I have a past not many know about...just like you. I don't mean to be lurid. Nor do I mean to pique your curiosity (please, forgive me).

As I look across the 45 miraculous years God has given me, I rue much. Inky blots nearly cover my life before I came to know Jesus Christ as my Lord. That should surprise no one. The marks that dot my life after I submitted to my God, those are the ones that would slacken the jaw. I can erase none of them.

When those events bubble to the surface, Satan's minions seem to pluck them out of the goo and hold them to the light to indict me as an utter failure as a Christ-follower. "You LOSE! You stole fizzy lifting drink! Good day, sir!"

Thankfully, Jesus leans over and whispers, "Ignore them. If anyone is in me, he is a new creation. The old is gone; the new is come."

What then am I to do with this unequivocal piece of evidence the enemy holds against me?

"Now I rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that your sorrow led to repentance. For you were made sorry in a godly manner, that you might suffer loss from us in nothing. For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted..." (2 Corinthians 7:9-10b)

Where I have erred in the past, God calls me not to flagellate myself. He doesn't ask that I crack my noggin against the granite. He calls me to repent. Turn around and my child; don't do so damaging a thing to yourself and against Me again. As He told one young lady, "Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more."

Satan would rather have me focus on the slime-covered indictment. The second half of 2 Corinthians 7:10 says, "...but the sorrow of the world produces death." The self-regret, the self-focus, the penance mindset that the accuser cultivates in us brings death and destruction (no surprise).

I remember very early in my career having received an unsatisfactory mark on my very first evaluation. I knew it pretty much ended anything I hoped would come from that job. My dear friend, Brian Rath, came to me that day and said, "If we could order our lives the way we wanted them ordered, we would be miserable. God knows what he's doing in your life." Certainly, I had not sinned, but this was something I would have changed in a New York minute.

Ten years later, I sat beside Patti, the freshly widowed wife of my dear friend Mark. She stood in her church to thank them for the love and tenderness they had shown her, mere days after Mark's death. With tears streaming down her cheeks, she testified, "If I could see things the way that God sees them, this is the very thing I would choose for my family." Her three young children sat beside her, too. No sin involved here, either, yet Patti understood that Satan wanted her to wallow in regret and misery, while God, though she could not yet see it, knew the plans He had for her.

Regarding my sin, God could have stopped me, but He didn't. Now, He calls me to go and sin no more. He tells me that His strength is made perfect in my weakness. Where I am unable, He is more than able. Where I am broken and shattered, He is holy and complete. Where I am begrimed, He is white as snow and offers me daily cleansing and restoration as I confess my sin to Him.

He has allowed me to pass through what I have passed through to exalt His might and power in my life. Perhaps if you knew from whence I came, you, too, might laud God all the louder for what He has done in me.

Andree Seu has a stirring look at the glory that God has wrought to Himself through our broken lives. Give her a read (here), and sing praise to the God who has set your feet upon the Solid Rock.