The Futility of Regret

Darkness has a way of filling the void around us and boxing us in. There is something about the darkness that isolates us in a way that is divorced from reality. In the dark our inner world becomes the only world, or at least that’s the way it feels.  Those of us who have dealt with insomnia or altered sleep schedules know that one of the most frustrating and trying thing is to sit patiently yearning for sleep when sleep will not come. Blaise Pascal once said that “all of humanity’s stem from man’s inability to sit in a quiet room alone.” Those of us who know the debilitating power of darkness know these words to be painfully true in a number of ways. Too often the isolation of darkness releases our assailing demons. Ideas and fears stifled by the daylight often prevail in the sequestration of the night. The lusts of the flesh and doubts long stifled burst suddenly to life in the quiet hours.

Such has been my experience. Working overnight shifts have been difficult on my non-working hours. Often I find myself awake at unusual times battling the losing battle of imposing sleep that will not come. It seems so often that it is in times like these that the doubts and fears of our past take the opportunity of our weakness to show themselves like some shadowy slithering menace. We all have fears and regrets about our lives. Though we may successfully (and rightly) bring them into the light of Truth through Scripture it is in our times of strife that they reemerge, causing us to question our choices, our promise of hope, and indeed our very lives. I found myself battling regret in wee small hours of the morning yesterday. My intent had been to go hiking later in the morning but the darkness lingered on interminably and sleep seemed an insurmountable mountian. Assailed upon by hopelessness and regret, the very choices that I have made over the years became a bitter reminder of my own insufficiencies and failures. Lost in the tedium, of course, like the very light of day, were the blessings which the Lord has shown me; the ways in which He reveals Himself and His will to me in ways small and large. That is the power of darkness: isolation and fear. We all have things in our past that we wish we could have done differently. We all have areas of our pasts that we would prefer be secret even to those closest to us; expanses of our minds that we fight to crucify daily that would shock even those who know us best. Regret, as it so often does, fermented into bitterness and it was in this spirit that I set out to hike a nature area on the west side of Ann Arbor.

The park has an inclusive, almost claustrophobic feel, even in the leafless days of late autumn thanks in part to the numerous hills and ridges that bring the hiker in and out of gullies and small valleys. I traversed in the earliest daylight hours aimlessly only having the vague goal of reaching the farthest extremes of the park; anything to get away from the turmoil of my own thoughts. Hiking so often is just that for me, a chance to escape the troubles of life and the pressures of polite society. Most of the hike was a display of grey and brown as fallen leaves crunched underfoot with a crust of frost and leafless trees filled the horizon, however every once and a while the rising sun peaked over the buffeting hills and cast away the shadows. Hiking east I climbed a rise that was slightly more difficult that I had intended and was greeted with a view of the Huron River Valley, smoky in the morning air and glinting with the rays of the sun. Now I’m not stupid, I knew the geography of the area. I hadn’t misplaced the river but still it came as a contrast to the bland forest and its skeleton trees. There it was: something so beautiful and shimmering amid the brown monotony of the rest of the hike. I had thrown a Bible into my jacket pocket out of habit as I had left and now pulled it out and sat down. I have been (slowly) driving my way through Isaiah and turned to the day’s reading: “And yet, Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, and you are the potter. We are all formed by your hand.”

It struck me in that moment the futility of regret. A thousand choices and sins might lay behind us like a vast wasteland, but if we know the Lord and set our sights on Him, nothing; not our past; not our doubts, can stop us. The Holy Spirit rescues us from the wreck of our lives. Decisions, good and bad, wise or unwise are meaningless unless done for the Lord. Conversely, even our limited, faltering steps move us closer if we have on our horizon the glory of the Lord. We are limited in our very nature: created things seeking to have the insight of their Creator. Of course we see only dimly the path before us, that is the point: to trust fully the one who draws us along, who leads us on. He has shaped us, molded us, and gifted us for His purposes. Even when those purposes seem elusive and shrouded in mystery our response should not be to lament our foolishly limited perspective but rather to trust in the Hand and Mind guiding us. Without Him, even our shrewdest decisions are nothing but a lesson in futility.

As I sat, the daylight exorcised the shadows from the wood. Unencumbered by the leafy canopy it immersed the forest in blazing light. The world seemed to swell as I viewed it but not in a way that isolated or frustrated. The expanse of blue sky, the shimmer of sunlight upon the river, the boughs of trees stretching out all spoke to me of the Lord’s providential will--- a plan free from shadows, darkness, and doubt. I would have sat there all day but the allure of the trail led me on. The promise of the unknown path before me led my steps. I think there’s a lesson in the walking.