Eagle Brook Church Blog

RYB (Romans): Living with Regret

By Vince Miller, Ministry Development Director

Do you ever have moments that you wish you could do over? Emails you wish you could unsend? Comments you wish you could retract? Experiences that leave you asking, “Why did I do that?”

I have these moments from time to time. The feeling is best captured with one word—regret.

Sometimes this feeling of regret is simple and passes quickly, but at other times it labors for long periods of time, plaguing my mind late into the night. Throughout my Christian journey, I have felt these feelings at work in my relationships with supervisors, peers, and employees. I have also experienced this feeling of regret at home with my wife and children, where I find myself struggling to climb out of a hole that I’ve dug for myself. The interesting thing is that I always wish I could go back in time and delete a simple word or phrase I have used in these moments.

I am not the only person who feels this way from time to time. We all feel this way. In fact, the apostle Paul also shared with us these moments of regret. In his book to the Roman church, he shares the deep workings of his heart and exposes this same struggle.

In Romans 7:15-18, Paul says, “I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.”

In these verses, Paul is deliberating with himself about the regret that he carries in his own life. As he labors over his regrets, he comes to identify the root issue—sin. Paul literally argues with himself in these verses, seeking a way out of the conundrum (much like I do in the early hours of the morning as I am wakened by my regret from the previous day), reaching for hope in the midst of a seemingly hopeless moment. And what he comes to realize is that the enemy lies within. Even the effort he exerts to reconcile the sin only makes a bad situation worse. Like a divine drama, no matter how hard he tries to defeat both his regret and sin, he discovers there is no way out of this hopeless situation—at least within his own strength.

The moment of hope comes in the final words, Romans 7:24-25. Paul discovers that true hope is found in a Savior who doesn’t just relieve us of our symptoms or regrets, but resolves the root issue—our sin. The culmination of this moment is beautiful. Paul says, “Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

Though we cannot unsend words of regret, we do have something much greater, and that is a Savior who cancels our sin and gives us hope.