Living With No Regrets

Being here in the jungles of Brazil has been difficult. No doubt. We just got home from one of our discipleship meetings and it’s about 10:30pm. I’m a big huge ball of sweat because we had to walk all the way down the mountain and then back up after the meeting. (I still don’t understand how you can walk uphill both ways?!) There was a rather large group of us walking together tonight (I think there were 23 of us walking in a big huge pack) as we trekked up and down the mountain to and from the meeting. It was really cool seeing all my kids walking and joking around with everyone as we walked along on the dark dusty road. Only 2 of us had flashlights so we all stayed pretty close to each other.

When we got home I started listening to a podcast that was on my computer. It was a Catalyst Podcast from back in May and the guest speaker was Pastor Judah Smith from Seattle. I got to see him speak in South Carolina last year and have been listening to his sermons off and on ever since. He’s a good communicator with some pretty good stuff to say each week. I don’t know if you know the story but he had lost his dad, in December of last year, to cancer and has taken over the church that his dad had been pastoring for along time. He was speaking on this particular podcast about regrets and how the loss of his dad really made him take a hard look at his life to make sure he wasn’t going to regret anything with his wife and kids if he died. When he said it I started to think about my life. Am I going to regret anything when I die? Is there anything that I’m gonna wish I had done with anyone in my life. Is there anything I’m not doing or saying to my wife or kids that I would regret? Am I gonna be able to stand before my God unashamed on that day? Stuff like that.

I decided to make a quick list and do a quick inventory of people and things in my life to see. Actually, I typed it up and was going to share the results with you here on the blog but decided against it. There are definitely things I need to take care of though. Here are few things I will share though:

I won’t regret following Jesus and giving my whole life to Him.

I won’t regret moving my family here to Brazil to spread the Gospel.

I won’t regret “only” loving/pursuing my wife for the rest of my life (it’s already been 24+ years)

I won’t regret being open and honest with my kids about life.

I won’t regret telling my wife and kids I love them and being affectionate with them.

I won’t regret being passionate about my relationship with God.

There were more things I won’t regret, those were just a sampling of my list. Here are a few of the things I would regret if I were to die right now. Just for the record, hopefully I won’t die right now so I can change some of these things:

I do regret not being more persistent in trying to share the Gospel with my neighbors in our old neighborhood in Georgia. We lived there over 10 years. They all knew I was and christian and in the ministry but I wasn’t aggressive enough when it came to sharing the Gospel with them. I tried to live a godly life in front of them, and that was my way of witnessing, but in retrospect... I think that’s a load of crap! I was a coward for not being more intentional with them. What’s up with that? Where do we get this “living a godly life” “being a living testimony” thing anyway? Sure we should live godly lives but it can’t stop there... we MUST share the Gospel too. Forgive me God and forgive me neighbors.

I do regret spending soooo much time doing stuff at church. I served on the pastoral staff at a local church in Atlanta for over 9 years and missed out on a lot of stuff with my family because I was “ministering.” My family never got to fully enjoy an Easter Event, Fall Festival (Christian Halloween, haha), Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, or any other special holiday with their dad because I was “ministering” and fulfilling my ministerial duties. What an idiot I was for sacrificing family for ministry. There’s definitely a balance and I should have drawn some lines in the sand and set boundaries. And the sad thing was that most of the stuff was self imposed because I loved what I did and I was so zealous for ministry. I can’t get those years back but I can make sure it doesn’t happen again. Forgive me family.

There was more stuff on my list but those were some of the highlight/lowlights of what I came up with. What about you? If you died right now (and we’re all dying... you do know that, right?) is there anything you’d regret concerning your family, neighbors, co-workers, things you fill your schedule with, pursuits, and most importantly... God?

Take a few minutes and make a list. It would definitely be worth the time. Because all of us would like to die and have no regrets, right?

Just Sitting Here Thinking,

Jim

PS - the pic at the top was outside our front door last night and was without a flash.