Woulda - Shoulda - Coulda

I know dozens of folks my age that live in the box of "woulda-shoulda-coulda."  A friend of mine is a large fan of the casino just a few miles away.  The other day he made mentioned he was bluffed out of a hand worth a few thousand dollars.  His remark when asked: "What made you fold?" - " can't explain it, I felt like I should.  If I would have called, I would buying all you guys breakfast for the next month."  Another fella at the table said, "I wish you had stuck it out, now that you tell us that." My dad used to use the phrase when something went array and would have turned out as a better fit - "hindsight is 20/20, but there's no sense in wallowing in woulda, shoulda, coulda."

This book by John Ortberg: All The Places To Go .....How Will You Know has really got my mind engaged and soul eating. 

Quite probably Dad was "right on" in many cases. Bettyann and I have that conversation quite often. Old Mr. Risk Taker, here, if I had known before hand what I know after the fact, things could have very well turned out differently. Then there's that nuance that seems to be wrapped up in my precious wife's mindset that things would not only have turned out differently but that they 90 to 10% would also have turned out better. Of course in my defense; I think this would take much more than 20/20 vision. All of that said, I think standing on the other side of knowing sure gives me a different perspective, to be sure. But to assume that because of the perspective "I now see perfectly," it can be a perilous oversight. I'm not sure my sweetheart and I will ever reconcile on this point of view.  But what a great spiritual insight I am gaining.

The Israelites often cried out to God in the belief that they were seeing perfectly. The shackles that bound them to Egypt and misery were broken off before their eyes. God moved them from slavery to freedom via the floor of the Red Sea, putting before His people a sign momentous enough to make an impression upon each day ahead of them. Yet walking through the adversities of the desert, they cried out as if never having seen the hand that was leading them. "If only we had died in Egypt! Or in this desert! Why is the LORD bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword? Our wives and children will be taken as plunder. Wouldn't it be better for us to go back to Egypt?," as recorded in Numbers 14.

It seems to me that here is a place demonstrating the view from hindsight can be as misleading as it is insightful. The Israelite's mistreatment at the hands of the Egyptians was overlooked in their perception of the other side of the Red Sea. Furthermore, their deliverance from God's own will in hindsight must have been viewed as unremarkable and unrelated to their need for God in the present. In ruminating a little more in-depth, I'm convinced that most cries of "woulda, shoulda, coulda may often be a cry of distrust. Is there a bit if not a while lot more "I know best, better, of what I need?" Like the Israelites in their forgetful wailing I have come at times to believe to my chagrin, that I know for certain that I not only know what will make my situations better, but what will finally make me happy. I always assured of just the thing, in my life, that is missing. I hear myself - "If only we had meat to eat" the Israelites insisted, "we would be satisfied." But they were not, and I'm not successful either. At my age, I' continue to face the fact: what I need is often a far cry from what I think I need. For sure there are many occasions that I, this minute canlook back to a prayer and thank God that it wasn't answered.
G.K. Chesterton spoke in poem of the posture one often forgets when the cry to change the past or achieve the perfect future emerges from his lips. He writes,

Thank God the stars are set beyond my power,

If I must travail in a night of wrath,

Thank God my tears will never vex a moth,

Nor any curse of mine cut down a flower.

Instead, I realize I have been given the freedom of thankfulness that the One listening to my prayers sits with wisdom far greater than my own. For even Job who cried, "If only I had never come into being, or had been carried straight from the womb to the grave" found in the end that he had spoken out of turn. I can thank God that His thoughts are beyond my own, that He knows the longings I express and the ones I do not know to express. I can thank God for the promise that all things work together for good—my trials, my mistakes, my past, my future. And I do! Amen