"If Only" I had....

Have you ever said those two little words "if only"......
You hear people say "if only I had said that instead"......"if only I had done that instead of this".....
"if only I had not gotten angry".....if only, if only, if only........

I talked a little bit about these little words last night at our Bible Study but you know what in doing more thinking today I had to really search more in my heart about these two words, and here are my thoughts.

Why do I think these two little words can change something?
These two little words keeps me looking backwards at things I no longer have control over instead of looking forward at the future things that I can affect by my decisions and choices.

These two little words keep me caught up, unfocused, unplugged, wastes my thoughts, keeps me at a barricade that hinders my growth.

I have made mistakes, made bad decisions and choices and maybe you have as well, but you know what? These two little words don't have to be the end of everything.

We need to think of these two little words as a computer virus, once it gets into your computer it messes everything up, "if onlys" do the same we can't get past the virus and move on if we continue to let the virus fester up in our thoughts all the time.

So how do we get rid of these two little words in our life and move on? We need to move our thoughts from "what was" to "what is".

We need to totally get rid of these two words from our vocabulary, our mouths, our thoughts and instead use words like "next time I will".

When we stop saying “if only” and start saying “next time I will” then we begin to push back the barricade of regret. We instead begin to move forward, and hold onto what can be in our future. We begin living in a way that is productive and working our lives the way God needs them to be rather than allowing defeat from our past "if onlys".

God will guide our way!
First John 1:9 says that "if you acknowledge your sins and failures (the things you have said and done and now regret), God will wipe them out as though they never even existed, and guide you every step of the way toward a promising future".

If our life is dominated by “if onlys,” let's throw those two little words away and let God teach us how to say “next time I will.”

After all my thoughts when I returned from Bible Study last night on these two little words I'm truly going to "try this" and watch how God can change me by changing these two "little words", and I challenge each of you to try the same and I hope to hear from you as to how God changes you by changing two "little words" in your life.