If – If Only (or Might Have Been),

in the world of “If Only” and “What might have been”.

Almost, pretty much, just about, for the most part, if, maybe,

might have been…yea but, yea but if…

…if

…if only

Might have been

Might have been if only

Might have been

How much of my time do i spend living in the circular thinking of those

words? Round and round and round.  i doubt i could measure the hours and days. my mouth reflects my heart so i must take the words of my mouth seriously in reflection of what the inventory of my heart is. I heard someone say once that mistakes rarely come in the singular, they are often in litters. In light of that, i’ve decided i should pay better attention to what, and how i sow.

In the principle of Reaping and Sowing, often in life, among the good seeds we sow, there are the sowings of things that, never in this life, would we wish to grow at our feet. But yet, more and more often, i see the seeds of regret that grow around our feet like vines that tangle us and cause our attention to shift from important matters to spending more and more time untangling ourselves from these “vines”, strangling vines, ropes impeding forward momentum, vines of distraction and the more we are distracted the more we are distracted.

Many people like to wander in the cemetery of past errors and old wrongs, rereading old headstones and epitaphs of the things we think we have “reckoned dead”, moaning over old wrongs saying over and over, “Oh, i so wish i hadn’t done that.” but never really letting it all go. Regret often paralysis hope, corrodes the connection between vision and purpose, and becomes a dead weight to our forward momentum.  This is not healthy; it is a chronic gastrointestinal turbulence of the soul. We spend so much time bringing the past to be alive in the present that “what was” dominates the “what is”, and heavily influences “what will be”. Regret is surrender to the dominion of the past that should not be.

In the silence of late night, the gray place between awake and asleep, we play the video of what “might have been”. True, there are times when it is wise, in small amounts, to consider “might have been” and “if only”, but when it plays in a constant loop it makes us weak because it over-emphasizes the past at the expense of the present.

The constant playing of “might have been”, becomes an anchor around our necks, becoming weights, not wings.  “It might have been” sings softly to us, lulls us to doze off while regret grows gently around our feet, binding up our courage and growing roots through the foundations of our confidence.

It is like a seed that has fallen into the crevice of a rock wall, finds a little water, sprouts to life, then grows roots that eventually turn a crevice into a crack, and the wall falls broken to the ground.

Consider the effort we spend trying to reconstruct our lives from some date in the past, when we might have taken a different path or gone another way. We go back in our memory to some fork in the road in life and think how amazingly better life would have been  “If i had never taken…”, “If i had only bought the land when…”, “If i had only married the other one…”, “If i had only graduated high school”,  “If i had prayed the right thing at the right time”, “If i had been more persistent”, “If i had not fallen asleep while…”, “i wish i had never said…”, “If i had only just stayed home”,  “If God had only…”

A man said to me while weeping over his life, “Sometimes, i seem to spend the bulk of my time wishing God would do something other than what He is doing.”

If.

If. If only.

If. It might have been if…

Oh my, that little “if” is as slippery as black ice…it seems so right until suddenly your feet are over your head. And it would seem to probably be true, things may have been better, but it is certainly more presently true… that was then and this is now, today is upon us, and this is where we are and this is what we’re doing. The past is done. Fini! Over! Forever done, for good or bad. Backing up is not allowed. There is no regret which will allow itself to ever be relived in order that it would become something other than what it is.

Don’t you know that looking back at “what might have been” always looks sweeter in the rear view mirror.

The colors, the colors of “might have been” are always so brilliant! The reds, and blues, the crimson and purples, the yellows & pales. The white sails of distant ships are always full and whiter than our own, and the green of far away hills are always greener. Might have been always looks SOOO good from a distance.

It seems to always be the attraction of “the other road”, and hell works to keep us circling in the dream world of “what might have been” on “the other road” without visualizing the cost. “The other road” might have brought us crowds chanting our name gloriously, but we would have lost someone very close to our heart. “The other road” may have made us ridiculously rich, but maybe we would have had to live with shame, forfeiting dignity and honor. The cost of “the other road” is rarely discussed in the video loop of “might have been”.

As long as we wear flesh we will always make mistakes, it is, evidently, something we, as humans, do very well. i heard someone say once that the present is the making of soon-to-be-history. If we don’t like what we reap, then i suggest we change what we sow, for in our obsession with our mistakes there is fertile ground for regret.

Let us leave of the graveyard of “might have been” and “if only” to go forward. We are not people of our history, but people of our destiny.  As best we can let us take seriously what we sow, leaving the graveyard of old things where regret grows around our feet … let it go. Let the dead be dead and let us catch our breath in a new direction. Don’t just change your mind, better yet, come home!

i’m Social Porter for Living In His Name.