Recently in an interview someone asked me; “With hindsight would you have done things differently?”

I took a long pause and cobbled something together about wanting to know names better, I always want to know names because it helps with developing relationships and gaining peoples trust – especially important if you are trying to teach children that emotionally have not matured – but thinking about this question it seemed strange. We can all look back and recognise mistakes that were made in the past and make sure we try not to repeat these mistakes, but we can never change the past. What I have done, I have done. This reminds me of Pilot when the Jewish leaders asked him to change what he had written because the charge said this is the king of the jews and in doing so he spelled out the name of Yahweh above the cross.

So the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ but only that He said, ‘I am the King of the Jews.’ ” Pilate answered “What I have written, I have written”. 

John 19:22

It is set, it is done.
I can not change one single thing.
I have laughed, I have cried,
I have rested under the Lord’s wings.
I have worked, I have toiled,
I have delivered what was asked of me.
I have sang, I have praised,
I have sought that fateful tree.

Only God has the ability to look forward to see what mistakes or more drastically what sins we will make and still step in and show His grace and mercy on each one of us. Jesus knew what each one of us would become and still His plan was put into place as He chose to step up to be nailed to the cross and be nailed as a tree of life for all who would accept Him.

Dear Lord, gather my past mistakes and refine them in refiners fire
so that I may become an agent of light for all who may be in need
Amen