Date: January 28, 2019 ()

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We live in a really, really busy world. There is so much going on; way too much going on. Whatever happened to just relaxing and enjoying your life? I read an article recently, and it said that people in America work so much that they really just use their house to sleep in. Their real family is their office family. Is that not sad? That is not how it is meant to be. That is not what God’s plan is, but it is what is prophesied in the Bible. It says in Daniel, “In the last days Satan will come to wear out the saints.” You did not know that stress was in the Bible, did you? They did not call it stress, but stress is what wears you out. We all need a little bit of stress in our life because it makes us work and go after things, but not what we have going on now.

There is something called “the tyranny of the urgent”. It is a book you can get about the urgent versus the important. What is the difference? The urgent is not important but it is always, “You have got to do this. You have got to be there. You have to have this. You have to do that. You have to say this. You have to go there. Make sure you get this done.” It pushes on you all of the time. “Do it now. Do it now. Do it now.” The important, which are the important things in life, can always wait. Have you ever thought about that? Spending time with your spouse, friends, and your children gets put off. “Oh honey I would love to do it, but I have got to work late tonight. We will do it this weekend.” “Well, sorry. They need me at work. They called me and I have to come in early on the weekend. They need me.” You can put off the important things while the tyranny of the urgent pushes you constantly.

The title of the lesson today is “Are You Living a Life of No Regrets.” The reason that I talked about this tyranny and about the fact that it was prophesied, “In the last days Satan will come to wear out the saints,” is because I wanted to get you in the mindset of how you are really living before I teach this lesson. If I just taught this lesson and I did not bring up the fact that life is this busy and this crazy, you might listen to me. You would think, “I do not really need to do that.” You go back into this life of the tyranny of the urgent and it just goes zip and you cannot do it. I want you to think about how busy everything is. Then I want to ask you, are you living a life of no regrets?

We all make mistakes, especially in raising our children. I think that raising children is hard, it is wonderful, but it is hard. I do not think you can get through getting those children raised that you have not made some mistakes that you think “I did not do that right.” However, in raising your children right if you will pray, “Lord, all of these children are individuals. They are all different. They all need certain things from me. I need to raise them a certain way. Give me the wisdom to raise this child the right way. Tell me how to love each one so they know they are loved.” If you raise them to know and serve the Lord and others, if you will do that, when they grow up the apple does not fall too far from the tree. Even if they go through all of these times of messing up, trying to learn how to fit in the world and get their place in the world, they will end up in the right place because it is the Lord’s promise. “Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.” It does not say he might not have some things that happen that pull him away, but if he has been trained right he is going to end up serving the Lord because you trained him to. Mother’s Day just passed recently and I e-mailed my children and asked them to tell me five things that you remember that I did for you as a mother. I just wanted to see what they would say. One of them said, “You taught me to be a big dreamer, to serve others, to attempt big things, to like burned toast and that God was the number one priority. My spiritual welfare was your number one priority.” That made me feel great. I laughed over that burned toast because one time I fed my kids that. What is something you remember me telling you all of your life? I was just waiting for this great pearl of wisdom. They both looked at me and said in unison, “Uh oh, I burned the toast.” I bet I burned the toast every day of their life. How did I do that? Because I put it in that toaster and I forget that it is in there. I am busy doing something else because a mother is a multi-tasker. The other one said, “You taught me how to laugh at myself in a good way. You taught me how to receive criticism and deal with it. You taught me how to care about other people. Dream big dreams. You taught me you were not the village idiot.” Is that not crazy? You do not know what your kids are going to say about you, but that is mine. We have a very honest, open family. I can tell you that.

Do I have any regrets? We asked our children when they were in college; do you have any regrets about us in our role as a parent? My daughter said no and my son said, “I just wish we could have had more time together.” Did I make mistakes? Yes. Did we have times when there was tension and stress? Yes. You cannot do it right. It is all over as far as raising them and that is what they said. When my daughter was about a senior in high school, I was really busy. I am a busy person and like to be busy. I thought to myself, “These things can wait. This is your daughter’s senior year. If you are not involved in everything that is going on, you are going to be so sorry. You are going to regret it.” I just dropped my life. How did I do that? I just arranged things where I could. My life was her that year. I went to all of the ball games I could go to. I went to all of the meetings she needed me to go to. Many times I was the only mother there or maybe there were only one or two other mothers because women have to work today and it is hard. I do not regret it. I do not have a regret that I spent that time with her. I also stayed home with my children as much as could. I am a person who has always worked part-time. One way or another I have always found a way to work, but I arranged it so that I could be at home. My husband said to me one time, “Make sure you are home at 4 o’clock when they come in from school and try to have something good for them to eat so that when they come home they will tell you about their good day or their bad day.”

In living a life of no regrets it can be really serious. You may have messed up your whole life. You can do that. You may be watching this show and saying, “Who cares about ball games, if you knew what I had done. I have messed up everything.” It is never too late to correct a mistake; never. You can go to God and you can say, “See this mess. I need you. I will do whatever you say. I will take as long as I need to take. Just do something God. Just do something.” I have had to do that before. You can even do worse than that in messing up your life and your whole life ended up being a regret, nothing got corrected.

Is there anything like that in the Bible? Yes, the rich man and Lazarus. Do you remember that story? Turn in your Bible to Luke 16:19. “There was a certain rich man, Jesus said, who was splendidly dressed (he had the great clothes), lived each day in mirth and luxury (had the big house, the big car, all the fun trips). One day Lazarus, a diseased beggar, was laid at his door and he lay there longing for scraps from the rich man’s table. The dogs would come and lick his sores. Finally, the beggar died and he was carried by the angels (so angels could help take you to heaven), to be with Abraham in the place of the righteous dead. The rich man (I guess he was not righteous) also died and he was buried and his soul went into hell.” Hell is a real place. Do not be one of those people who say, “I do not like that hellfire and damnation stuff.” I know what you are talking about. I do not like that screaming preaching, just yelling at you, but hell is a real place and millions of people have gone there and will go there. Heaven is a real place and millions of people have gone there and will go there. It is real. You have to make the choice of where you are going to go. Faith in Jesus Christ as your Savior, as your Lord, that is what does it. You have to receive Him into your heart, into your life and let Him change you. This rich man had not done that. I am sure he had opportunities. I am sure God went to him. No one in hell can say God did not give me a chance. Yes, He did. He gave you many chances and you would not respond. “While he was in torment he saw Lazarus in the far distance with Abraham. He shouted, “Father Abraham, have pity. I am misery. Send him over here and just let him dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue for I am in anguish and flames, burning and burning. Abraham said to him, Son, remember, during your lifetime you had everything you wanted and Lazarus had nothing. Now he is here being comforted and you are in anguish.”

It is all based on choice. It is not based on anything else. Besides, there is a great chasm separating us and anyone wanting to come to you from here is stopped at its edge and no one over there can cross to us. You do not have a choice after you die. Your choice is now. Then the rich man said, “Oh Father Abraham, if you cannot help me send him to warn my brothers not to come here lest they come here when they die. Abraham said, the Scriptures have warned over and over and over about this place. They will not listen.” They can read them any time they want to. You can read the Bible any time you want to and find out what God says about that. This man was in anguish. “Father Abraham, they will not bother to read them.” That is sad. Do you realize you are going to die and go to heaven and even as a believer if you have not taken the time for the most important things versus those urgent things, you are going to be so sorry. You do not want to be like that. You want to know the Lord and serve the Lord, serve people and let God use your life. It is worth it all. It is going to count for all of eternity. You are going to be so glad. “He said if someone is sent to them from the dead then they will turn from their sins. Abraham said if they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not listen even if someone rises from the dead.” Jesus was talking about Himself and He was right. They did not. The point is the man had great regrets. He had spent his life chasing luxury, mirth, possessions, ease and he had missed the important things in life.

What is important? What are the right priorities? God has to come first in your life and really come first, not just here but in your daily life. “Lord, what do You want me to do today? Lord, how do You want me to do this? Oh, You do not want me to do that? I want to do that, but You do not want me to do that? Okay, I will not do it.” That kind of Lordship of Jesus.

Next has to come your spouse; your spouse comes before your children. Your children need to see you loving your spouse. It teaches them how to love. Then comes your children. After that comes your job, friends and ministry; all of that comes after the others. We just talked about how busy life is. You need to take time to read the Bible every day. You have five minutes a day. I know you do. You can take five minutes a day. Keep it in the bathroom or wherever you can take five minutes and say, “God speak to me today.” Open that Bible up and read somewhere. You can do that. You can take time for your spouse. It is very important that your spouse know they are number one. I am being very honest with you. I told you that I am real busy and I have a lot of irons in the fire. I am a go, go, go kind of girl. I have to make sure my husband feels like he is number one. He is a wonderful, godly man. It is nothing against him. I can just get too busy. When I am saying to live a life of no regrets, I am talking to myself too. “Make sure, Betty, that he comes first and he knows it. Make sure your children know it.” I have grown children. How do they know how important they are to me now? I can tell you one way. They will call me and say, “Mimi, can you baby-sit?” I say, “You bet.” I just drop everything. Whatever I have going on I rearrange it, whatever, because I want those children to know, you are still the most important thing to me behind your dad and behind God.

Your friends are important. You need to have good friends. You have to nurture the friends. What do you do with your children or your spouse to not have any regrets when you are through with your life? I will just ask you a question right now. If something happened to your spouse, would you have any regrets of what you wished you had done? I was in New York City in a store and a lady had an accent. I told you I went to Russia, Belarus, for eight years so I recognized that Eastern European accent. I thought maybe she was from Belarus or Russia. She said she was from Kosovo. We just started talking. I do not how we got in this conversation but she said, “My father is a dentist. He always told my mother, when I retire we are going to travel. Events happened beyond his control. The war came. She said that he has lost everything. He has nothing and they cannot travel.” How hard would it have been just to take a little time off to go off and be together? It is kind of addictive actually. My husband and I got married when he was in veterinary school and we got married pretty quickly. We did not really have a real honeymoon. When we had been married 19 years we had our honeymoon. We went to Jamaica and said to the people we met, “Please understand that we never had a real honeymoon. We just want to be together and let this be our honeymoon.” Do you take time to talk with your spouse? Do you know where to go that you can have time away from the phone? Do you know where we go a lot? The Dairy Queen. There is a Dairy Queen near our house. We just go over there and eat a hamburger or something and talk and talk and talk.

Did you take the time to learn how to meet your spouse’s needs? There is a book. “Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus.” It is true. What you think are your spouse’s needs are not your spouse’s needs. They are probably your needs. Take the time to learn what they need. One of the teachings I have is on love languages. There is a certain way that you can treat your spouse that they will feel loved. For some it is giving gifts, quality time, acts of service or words of appreciation. It is worth it to not have that regret.

We have prayed for a lot of laughter in our family and we have had it. It is amazing. If you will just say, “God give us lots of laughter in our home, He will.” Laughter is from God. Did you know that? It is from God. He likes to laugh. I have always prayed, “Strengthen the weak points in our marriage and strengthen the strong points.” Some of that is not easy or pleasant. It is hard work, but you cannot have a good marriage without doing it. You do not want to have the regret that you could have had a good marriage if you had just done what it takes. For some of you, maybe for a lot of us, counseling with somebody who is wise can really help you work through something that the two of you cannot seem to work through.

In order to have a life of no regrets, learn to enjoy your children. God gave them to you. The Bible says they are a gift from God. Sometimes you think, “Oh, what a package.” The Lord knows what He is doing. He picked homes to put children in for reasons. After they grow up, they can be a real asset to you because they have wisdom of their own. They have experiences of their own. I can call both of my children up and say, “What do you think I ought to do about this?” They give me amazing advice. They are still young people, but they have had experiences that I have not had and they can give me really good advice. What does that make your children feel like? You can even do that with young children. You can sit down with a ten-year-old and say, this is a situation. How would you handle it? You do not need to be arguing about finances and all of that in front of your children. You do not to be revealing problems between you and your spouse, but you can ask your children. You would be surprised how a nine or a ten-year-old child has a wisdom that shocks you.

Another thing is disciplining your children. King David did not discipline his children. Eli, the prophet, did not discipline his children. Deep regrets, deep, deep regrets. You say, “Well, I just did not want them to not like me.” You were not called to be their best friend. You are called to be their parent. I am not talking about harshness because the Bible specifically says, “Harshness breaks a child’s spirit.” You are not trying to break their spirit, but trying to break their will when they are little. We all have to have our will broken or we would all just get out there and go crazy and do whatever we wanted to do, whatever we felt like doing. Discipline is good, the right kind. You can learn. You can read books. You can go to conferences. I had a neighbor who had five children. Her house was always in order, always clean, no matter what time of the day or night that you went over there. My house, sometimes you tripped over the vacuum cleaner coming in the front door. This woman had it all together. She told me one time, “Betty, every body likes discipline, even adults like it, because it gives you boundaries.” If you do not have boundaries to push against, or to know where they are, you run wild. That is why so many children are out of control today. They do not have a parent that says, “No, you are not going to be active in every sport, every game, every this and every that. No, you are going to stay home.” “Well I want to.” “No, you are going to study.” Discipline is so important.

Another thing you do not want to regret about is being critical. Children get enough criticism at school. You do not even think about that, do you? Their friends pick on them (supposedly friends), their enemies certainly do. Their teachers sometimes do. When you come home and say, “You do not do this. You do not do that.” It beats them down. There is a better way to correct them. There is a kind, loving way that is still firm and wise. That is what I am talking about. You have to pray and say, “Lord, show me how to raise this child.”

In order to say that you do not have any regrets about friendships, you want to be really sure. I can feel the presence of the Lord in this room right this minute. It is amazing. I can feel it. There are some of you who have wrong friends. For whatever reason, you cannot make yourself break loose from them, but you need to. It is going to be something that damages your life. Let me just listen for a second. “Lord, what are you saying?” There are people playing with fire, destructive fire, that is going to ravage their whole life. It is coming through unhealthy friends. Maybe you do not what that is, but it is a prophetic word. How do I know? Because I did not think of it and I could tell the Holy Spirit was saying it. It is very important that you are careful about who your friends are. For one thing, they influence your children and you do not want a bad person influencing your children when you are trying hard.

Sometimes you are so busy you do not have time for your friends, so limit how many you have so that you can take care of your friendships. You want them to go deep. I have taught about the different levels of friendship in a previous lesson. You do not want to go through life and say I really regret that I never developed long lasting relationships. If they made me mad, I was out of there. You do not want that.

Also, you do not want to go through life and say I never served the Lord. I never did. I was all into my stuff, my money, my dreams, my hopes and I never served the Lord. What a regret. It is probably the one, besides your family, that you are going to regret the most. What you do on earth determines what happens in heaven, not whether you go to heaven or not, but what you do there. Heaven is a real place. It is a city as real as Amarillo, Dallas or Bangkok. It is real. It has real things going on.

Of all the things that you do not want to regret, you do not want to regret not serving Jesus, not serving people or helping people. You do not want to regret that. Ask the Lord in your heart right now, “God, I turn my life over to you completely. Correct my mistakes and give me a life of no regrets. Touch me, God, now.”

QUIET TIME QUESTIONS

1. What is the difference between important things and urgent things?
2. What is the proper order of your relationships?
3. When you have regrets about a relationship, what should you do?
4. How do you keep from having regrets about the relationships in your life?

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