Our "If Onlies"

MISSED opportunities!
If only....
It is good to regret missed opportunities, but quite wrong to be miserable about them. You cannot look back across your past life without seeing things to regret. That is as it should be. But we have to draw a subtle distinction between a legitimate regret and a wrong condition of heart. Give God your "if onlies."
Think of those laborers in the vineyard in the parable which Jesus told Matthew 20:1-16. They all received the same wages, although some had worked the whole day and some had worked for only an hour. Compare that to a person's life. Some people enter the kingdom right at the end of their lives. They may regret all those years when they were not serving Christ. But the important thing is that they are in the kingdom right at the end of their lives. The thing that matters first of all, if you are a Christian, is not what you once were but what you are now.
Lord Jesus, I give you my "if onlies" to you. Make me a faithful laborer here and now.