Mark Sorensen Regret. It can be an ugly monster, huh?
Beginning this Sunday, I am starting a four week series that I am teaching called, “No Regrets”. It’s funny how God works. For several weeks I had planned a “Love Does” series. If you have yet to read the book, Love Does, you really should get out there and grab a copy immediately. God spoke to me through that book in January in ways I can’t even explain. SO, as I approached this transitional season with the church community I have been with for close to ten years, I wanted to go out big with a “Love Does” series.
So… I throw the words, “Love Does” on a giant marker board that I have in my office at home and divide it into four parts and sit back and pray for direction over the four weeks. And I sit. And pray. And wait. Weeks pass and NOTHING. Funny how it works that way. Then, I listen to a friend reference a book he had read by Bronnie Ware and I check it out: The Top Five Regrets of the Dying. Bronnie was searching out her life purpose and had tried many jobs. After working with several people in hospice settings, she found her calling. She would spend the remaining three to nine weeks of a person’s life loving and providing care for them in their final days. During these times, many opened up to Bronnie and confessed that, if they could go back in time, they would have lived differently in many decisions that they had made in their lives.
As I read through those pages, God OPENED THE FAUCET on this series that moved from “Love Does” to “No Regrets”. Beginning on Sunday, I will open with the danger of regrets and the need to put those ugly monsters down. It can be done. It NEEDS To be done. We were created to be free, not in chains (See Philippians 3:12-14, below).
Then, the following three weeks we will look at three of the top five regrets she referenced in her book:
I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
I wish I didn’t work so hard.
I wish that I had let myself be happier.
Here’s the thing. I believe ANY TIME we gather as a community and open up the scriptures, it has the potential to be life changing, heart restoring, God moving, Holy Spirit led time of renewal and restoration. I am praying for NOTHING SHORT of all just mentioned.
Can’t wait to share in these final weeks with this community I love.
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. -Philippians 3:12-14
