Most of us have things we wish we could undo. Sometimes the regret is relatively small, such as buying something we should not have purchased or saying something we wish we could take back. Other regrets are much heavier. We may look back on a decision, a relationship, a financial mistake, a missed opportunity, or a sin and wonder how different life might have been if we had chosen differently. The words “if only” can become a difficult burden to carry.
I experience regret too. Sometimes it is buyer’s remorse. Sometimes it is what I would call “word remorse.” I wish I had not said something, or had said it differently, or had chosen a better time to say it. I have actually prayed that God would cause the worthwhile things I have said to stick in people’s minds while allowing the things that were not worthwhile to evaporate and be forgotten. Unfortunately, life does not come with an undo button. There are things we can correct and apologies we can make, but we cannot go backward and make yesterday happen differently.
Regret becomes particularly dangerous when it moves beyond recognizing a mistake and starts defining who we believe we are. A Christian can become so discouraged by past failure that he or she withdraws from church, stops serving Christ, or concludes that God could never use someone with that history. Satan is the accuser, and accusation can keep reminding us of something Christ has already forgiven. Biblical repentance is important, but living indefinitely under condemnation for forgiven sin is not the same thing as repentance.
“You could spend your entire life regretting something you did and then never answer God’s call or allow Him to use you to make a difference.”
There Is a Difference Between Repentance and Regret
Regret is sorrow or remorse over something that has happened, something we have done, or even something we failed to do. In some cases regret is appropriate because it alerts us to genuine sin and leads us toward confession, reconciliation, restitution when appropriate, and wiser choices. Yet regret can also turn inward until our primary concern is not that we dishonored God or hurt someone else, but that we disappointed ourselves. We had a particular image of the kind of person we thought we were, and our failure shattered that image.
A.W. Tozer made an insightful observation about this danger. He warned that what appears to be deep regret can sometimes actually be a form of self-love. A person can become so disappointed in his own failure to live up to his self-image that even after receiving God’s forgiveness, he remains angry with himself. Instead of humbly receiving grace, he continues punishing himself. That is worth thinking about. If God is willing to forgive us, why would we insist that continually condemning ourselves is somehow more spiritual?
This does not mean Christians should minimize sin. Grace never gives us permission to continue deliberately doing what God has told us not to do. When we sin, we should confess it. When we hurt someone, we should seek forgiveness. When possible and appropriate, we should make things right. We should learn from foolish choices rather than repeatedly making them. But after genuine repentance, there comes a point when we have to accept God’s forgiveness and move forward.
Romans 8:1 gives Christians one of the clearest statements of this truth: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” That does not say there are no consequences for bad decisions, and it certainly does not say sin no longer matters. It says that those who belong to Christ do not have to live under condemnation. There is an enormous difference between the Holy Spirit convicting us so that we turn from sin and an accusing voice telling us that because we sinned, we are permanently ruined.
Peter Did the Very Thing He Said He Would Never Do
When I think about regret in the Bible, I think about Peter. His failure was not the failure of someone who barely knew Jesus. Peter had left his fishing nets to follow Christ. He had stepped out of a boat and attempted to walk on water because Jesus told him to come. When Jesus asked His disciples, “Who do you say I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16). Peter was also one of the three disciples Jesus brought with Him to witness the Transfiguration. He had seen and experienced things most people could hardly imagine.
Then came the week we remember beginning with Palm Sunday. Jesus entered Jerusalem as people spread their cloaks and branches along the road and cried, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” Hosanna carries the idea of “save us,” and many people undoubtedly had expectations about what kind of salvation the Messiah would bring. They wanted liberation from Roman oppression. Jesus came as King, but He was not fulfilling everyone’s expectations about what that King should do. Within days the celebration surrounding Jesus had given way to arrest, hostility, fear, and crucifixion.
Peter had confidently insisted that he would remain faithful. He was ready to defend Jesus. He could not imagine becoming the disciple who denied Him. Yet when Jesus was arrested and taken to the house of the high priest, Peter followed at a distance. A servant girl recognized him and said that he had been with Jesus. Peter denied it. Someone else identified him, and Peter denied it again. About an hour later another person insisted that Peter must have been with Jesus because he was a Galilean. For the third time Peter denied knowing Him.
Then the rooster crowed. Luke records a detail that makes the moment especially painful: “The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter” (Luke 22:61). Peter remembered exactly what Jesus had predicted. He had done the very thing he had confidently declared he would never do, and Jesus had seen it happen. Peter went outside and wept bitterly.
“Peter did the one thing he never thought he would do, and Jesus saw him do it.”
Many of us understand something about that moment. Perhaps we once said, “I would never do that,” and then we did. “I would never say that,” and then we said it. “I would never treat someone that way,” and then under pressure, fear, anger, temptation, or impulse, we did exactly what we believed we were incapable of doing. Sometimes it takes only a few seconds to create a regret that can follow us for years.
The Bible Is Filled With “If Only” Moments
Peter was certainly not the only person in Scripture who could have spent his life saying, “If only.” Adam and Eve could have said, “If only we had not eaten from that tree.” Moses could have remembered killing the Egyptian when he was younger or striking the rock in anger when he was older. Elijah could have regretted running in fear from Jezebel. David had terrible reasons to regret his sin involving Bathsheba and the death of her husband. Paul could look backward at the time when he persecuted Christians and participated in trying to destroy the church he would later spend his life building.
Some regrets involve sin, while others are simply decisions we wish had turned out differently. Perhaps you wish you had pursued more education or chosen another career. Maybe you wish you had been wiser with money. You might regret buying a house or car you could not afford. Perhaps you wish you had moved when an opportunity arose, or stayed instead of moving. Some people carry regret about a relationship. Others wish they had shared their faith with someone before that person died or moved away. There are accidental mistakes, careless mistakes, foolish decisions, and deliberate sins. They are not morally equivalent, but they can all leave us wondering what life would be like if we could somehow go back and change the past.
We cannot. What we can do is decide what we will do now. If forgiveness needs to be sought, seek it. If something can be repaired, repair it. If restitution should be made, make it. If you need wise counsel or accountability so that you do not repeat the mistake, get it. But do not spend the rest of your life trying to live in a yesterday that cannot be changed. God works with people in the present, including people whose past contains things they deeply regret.
Jesus Did Not Give Up on Peter
The most encouraging part of Peter’s story is what happened after the resurrection. Jesus knew exactly what Peter had done. He did not need Peter to explain away his behavior or convince Him that circumstances had been difficult. Yet the risen Jesus deliberately reconnected with the disciple who had denied Him. Luke 24 records the disciples saying, “It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.” Paul later included the same fact when summarizing the resurrection appearances in 1 Corinthians 15:5: Christ “appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve.” Peter’s encounter with the risen Jesus mattered enough to be specifically remembered.
Then John 21 records a remarkable conversation beside the Sea of Galilee. Jesus asked Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter answered that he did, and Jesus told him, “Feed my lambs.” Jesus asked again, and then a third time. Peter was hurt when Jesus asked him the third time, but the repetition is hard to miss. Peter had denied Jesus three times, and now the risen Jesus gave him three opportunities to affirm his love and commitment. Jesus did not merely tell Peter that his past no longer mattered. He restored Peter to useful service: “Feed my sheep.”
Then Jesus gave Peter the same basic command He had given him at the beginning: “Follow me.” Peter’s failure had been real, but it did not get the final word over Peter’s life. Jesus did.
“Christ’s love was greater than Peter’s failure, and God’s love is greater than our failures too.”
Jesus even told Peter that following Him would eventually be costly. John explains that Jesus was indicating the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Restoration did not mean Peter was promised an easy future. It meant his past failure did not disqualify him from having a future of faithful service. The man who once denied Jesus in fear would become a courageous witness for Jesus and an important leader in the early church.
Failure Can Become Part of Our Preparation
There is a familiar story about a promising young executive at IBM who made a decision that reportedly cost the company millions of dollars. Expecting to be fired, the executive went to see IBM leader Thomas Watson and offered his resignation. Watson supposedly responded that the company had just spent millions of dollars educating him. Whatever the precise details behind the often-repeated story, the point is memorable: failure can become very expensive education if we are humble enough to learn from it.
That can also be true spiritually. Some people who have made serious mistakes become particularly compassionate and useful because they know firsthand where certain roads lead. They have experienced the pain of foolishness and do not want to return to it. They can recognize danger in someone else’s life and say, “I have been down that road. Let me help you avoid what happened to me.” God does not approve of our sin in order to teach us lessons, but He is capable of redeeming what we have learned through failure.
Jesus told Peter something similar before Peter’s denial. In Luke 22:32 He said, “I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” Notice that Jesus knew Peter would stumble, but He was already talking about what Peter could do after he returned. “When you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” Peter’s failure would not have to be wasted. The man who learned how badly he could fail would also learn how graciously Christ could restore him, and that experience would equip him to strengthen other believers.
Get Back Up and Keep Following Jesus
I remember falling while skateboarding when I was younger. I was wearing my black-and-gold Pittsburgh Steelers Terry Bradshaw jersey, hit a rock, went flying, got scraped up, and threw the skateboard into the bushes. I announced that I was never riding that stupid thing again. After I stopped bleeding, probably about 20 minutes later, I went outside, retrieved the skateboard, and started riding again.
Another time I fell from a fast horse at a Bible camp after the saddle began slipping. I injured my arm, but people encouraged me to get back on a horse fairly quickly. Their reasoning was simple: if fear was allowed to settle in, I might never want to ride again. Those are small examples compared with serious moral or spiritual failure, but the principle has stayed with me. When someone falls, we should help that person get back up.
When a believer has sinned, genuinely repented, sought forgiveness, and taken appropriate steps to address what happened, the church should not make perpetual disgrace the price of admission. Restoration does not mean ignoring consequences or immediately returning someone to every former position of responsibility. Wisdom, accountability, restored trust, biblical qualifications, and the nature of the failure still matter. But Christians should be people who genuinely believe that God’s grace can forgive, change, and restore people.
Titus 3 reminds us why. Paul says that we ourselves were once “foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures.” Then something changed: “But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.” Christianity is not the story of good people being rewarded for never messing up. It is the story of sinners being saved because God is merciful.
Grace Means You Do Not Have to Punish Yourself Forever
God’s grace is unmerited favor. We cannot earn it through good deeds, accumulate more of it through extra effort, or qualify for it by making enough promises about what we will do in the future. If grace were something God owed us because of our performance, it would no longer be grace. Our response is to receive what Christ has provided, confess our sin, turn from it, and follow Him.
First John 1:9 gives us this promise: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” Psalm 103 describes God as “compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love,” and says that He “does not treat us as our sins deserve.” Then comes one of Scripture’s most beautiful descriptions of forgiveness: “As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.”
If you have never trusted Christ, forgiveness begins there. Jesus died for our sins and rose from the dead. Romans 10:9 says, “If you declare with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Salvation is not a reward for finally getting your life together. It is God’s gift to those who trust in Christ.
If you already belong to Jesus but are carrying a regret that has become a weight around your life, ask yourself what God wants you to do with it now. Is there a sin you still need to confess? Is there someone from whom you need to seek forgiveness? Is there something you can appropriately make right? Is there a lesson you need to learn so that you do not repeat the same mistake? Do what God is asking you to do. But if you have confessed the sin and received God’s forgiveness, do not confuse continuing to condemn yourself with spiritual maturity.
“Your regret may always be part of your story, but it does not have to become the conclusion of your story.”
Your Failure Does Not Have to Be the End of Your Story
Peter could have spent the rest of his life sitting somewhere saying, “If only I had not denied Jesus.” Instead, Jesus sought him out, restored him, and told him to follow. Peter got back up. He served Christ. He strengthened his brothers. He preached the gospel. The same Peter who once denied knowing Jesus eventually stood publicly and proclaimed Him.
That does not make Peter’s denial insignificant. It demonstrates the magnitude of Christ’s grace. Jesus knew Peter’s worst moment and still had a future for him. In fact, Jesus knew about Peter’s failure before Peter committed it. He knew the denial was coming when He first called Peter to follow Him, and He knew it when He told Peter that he would have a role in building His church.
That gives me hope because Jesus knows our entire story too. He knows the things we wish we could undo, the words we wish we could take back, the opportunities we missed, and the sins of which we are ashamed. None of that gives us permission to excuse sin, but neither does it put a repentant believer beyond the reach of grace.
Your regret may always be part of your story, but it does not have to become the conclusion of your story. Jesus is still in the business of forgiving sinners, restoring people who have fallen, and using imperfect people for His purposes. When you mess up, repent. Receive His grace. Learn what you need to learn. Make right what you can. Then get back up and keep following Jesus.