If Only

Have you ever thought about what a sad little phrase “If only” is? 

If only I had saved money earlier

If only I had not married this person

If only I had started my own business

If only I had not burned bridges with my friend

If only I had been more attentive to my family

If only I had looked before I pulled out of that intersection

If only I had not started drinking

If only I had chosen to have children

Iff only I had picked another major

If only I had appreciated what I had. 

“If only” is a dead end. There’s no point in going there.  As Caroline Leaf says in Switch on Your Brain, “If only” spoils everything by thinking there is better.  “If only” is the phrase of discontent, dissatisfaction, fear.  

There is legitimate regret for things we have done that are mistakes or sins.  But the phrase and the idea “if only” roots us back in the past instead of the present. We can’t go back and change the thing.  We also can’t live in that past by dwelling on that regret.  There is a sincere repentance from God that reorients us 180 degrees if we have been going in the wrong direction.

But to live in a state of regret for choices we have made is to be blind to what God is doing with who we are now and all the circumstances around us.  God is amazing.  He is just magical with our mistakes.  He can redeem ANYTHING.  So if we are facing backwards, living in the past, not facing God, we can’t live in the present or see what He is doing.  

I think the opposite is “So now.”  It’s rooted in the present and is redemptive.  It doesn’t deny the past, but doesn’t live there. No matter how tragic or unfortunate or wrong the past thing is, we are living in the Now, so that’s where God is working.  Let’s join Him there.

“Forget the former things;

Do not dwell on the past.

See, I am doing a new thing!

Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?”

Isaiah 43:18-19