If only….

If only. Two words that seem to haunt our hearts and our souls.  Regret, do overs, desperate wishes to change something, the results of living in a fallen world and the hope we have clinging to a faith in God that somewhere, someday, sometime this will all be explained. But, in our finite minds, we are still holding onto the “if only’s” of life.

For some it’s as simple as, if only I had chosen a different house, a different car, an educational change, a friendship or a job opportunity ended.  For others it’s the if only’s of a marriage, child’s poor decisions, addictions and choices that affect others, and we are left wondering what would have happened if….

Then it’s the heart wrenching phone call, the accident, the moment one looked away, the consequences of living in a world where so quickly life changes. As many options as we have we can’t go back. We won’t know what would have happened if.  We don’t know if we would be any happier, any more successful, any more creative, any more financially stable or anymore content in our relationships.  The underlining part of the “if only’s” is simply how our faith in Jesus Christ is holding us from falling apart.

Psalm 147:11 “the LORD delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love.”   When nothing else seems to make sense, God’s unfailing love is what I have to totally rest in. I can’t go back and redo the “if only’s” and that leaves me petrified with fear. I can simply rest in knowing the God is in control of the out of control stuff in life and I have to be okay with that.  We live in a world that is broken. Good people have bad things happen to them, children get cancer, children get hurt and die, mom’s leave this world before their children are grown, men don’t love their wives and wives walk out and never come home. Fallen, broken, hurt, desperate, damaged, shattered and I have to look at the pieces and cry. But there is a God… Daniel said that. He had seen God walk with them through the long trek to Babylon, shackled as slaves, made into eunuchs, forced to work in a pagan culture. But Daniel knew, there was a God. It didn’t seem fair, it wasn’t just, it wasn’t the right thing to take young men thousands of miles away from their home, it wasn’t their choice, but the God who was walking with them every step of the way to Babylon, was the God we helped them find favor in the eyes of the Pagan rulers, who converted one of them to the Jehovah God. We rescued them from the Fiery Furnace, the Lions Den, and walk into the palace with a dream interpretation so they wouldn’t lose their lives. Fair, no; a God thing? Yes! I don’t look for the bad stuff in life, it finds me pretty quickly. I don’t look for God in the bad stuff; I can’t miss Him. He is in, on, around, about, through and stuck on every bad thing thing we spend our time thinking, “if only”. He is holding the hand of thee hurting mom in the hospital, the young boy in the cancer ward, sitting beside the chaplain as he tells the young women her husband is missing in action. God is and always will be right in the middle of our lives. We will always have “if only’s” but God only has time for “what now’s”.  “What now God?” when we  can’t cry anymore. What now God when our heart is so broken the pieces seem too many to put back together. What now God when plan A, plan B an plan C all have totally fallen apart?  Some days, what now God doesn’t even make sense.  We are trusting that God will keep us upright, keep our heart from bursting, keep our soul from  going insane and keep us looking forward to a time where we won’t remember and ask “if only” or “what next God”.
Revelation 21:4   “And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”