What if you hadn’t lost your temper last week? What if you hadn’t told that lie? What if you had taken that other job? What if you had married that other person? What if you hadn’t quit the high school football team? What if you had just gotten that one break you needed? What if you had finished college? What if ____ (you fill in the blank).
How many times do all of us relive certain past events, saying: “What if I had done that differently?” Sometimes we daydream about how good life would be if things had gone differently. Sometimes we try to make wrong things right, finding a “loop-hole” so that we can justify our actions. There is the very real danger for many of us that we do it so much, we become consumed with the past.
Think about “What ifs”for a moment. “What ifs” are always the beginning of a false story. We have our story, our life. I didn’t become the shortstop for the Los Angeles Dodgers. No matter how much I “What if” the past, I will never be that shortstop. That is not my story!! That “What if” seems innocent enough, but it can lead to dissatisfaction with my life. I can end up blaming my “failure” to reach the Big Leagues on others, like my wife or my children. My real story can end up being trashed by a false story.
There is a great quote from C.S. Lewis’ Prince Caspian (from the Chronicles of Narnia) when Lucy is confronted by the lion, Aslan (who represents Jesus), because she didn’t obey him. First she tries to justify her actions and then she asks about what would have been had she obeyed him. Aslan answers her: “To know what would have happened, child? No. Nobody is ever told that.”
“What ifs” can seem innocent, but they are always false and they will cause us problems as we chew on them. “What if I had married that other person” will not help my marriage! It is not my story! “What if I hadn’t gotten divorced” will not change the divorce! It is not my story! “What if I had never had a baby” will not help me raise my children! No matter the “What if”, we will never know what might have happened and the false story will likely do us harm.
The Holy Scriptures advise us: “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward…let us live up to what we have already attained” (Philippians 3:13-16). God is saying: “Don’t ‘What if’ me with the past, but press on toward tomorrow with who you are today.”
All of us are in a place right now that our past decisions have put us in. We can questions those decisions for the next 10 years (beating ourselves over the head with “What ifs”) or we can see where we are right now and press on toward the future that will eventually be “our story”! Sometimes we will need to forgive others or seek forgiveness from God and others, but then we need to forget it and get on to what will become “our story”. Going back to Prince Caspian, Aslan tells Lucy that “anyone can find out what willhappen” if they just begin obeying Him now. May the Lord bless your “real story” each and every day!!
