Discipleship
Many of us carry the heavy weight of "what if." We replay past mistakes like a film, convinced that a single detour ruined the destination God had for us. We tell ourselves, "If only I had chosen differently," believing our missteps have taken us off God's intended path.
But recently, a profound dream shifted my entire perspective from what I thought I had lost to what God had actually saved.
In this dream, I was reliving certain moments in my past. These specific moments all had one thing in common: they were situations where I've always felt that I made a mistake or made the wrong choice. However, in the dream, I had total control. I was finally able to make the "right" choices. But as the dream unfolded, I saw the consequence of my "perfection." After making these supposedly right choices, my life ended up being completely different, and I ended up being far from God. I was stuck, and it felt like I had completely diverted from the calling that God had for me.
To understand why my "mistakes" were actually mercies, we have to look at how we view God's will. Calvinism emphasizes God's absolute sovereignty: He chooses His elect before the foundation of the world, and every event is part of His sovereign plan. Arminianism highlights human response and responsibility: God offers salvation to all, but individuals must freely choose to accept or reject it.
I believe the truth is found in the middle. God is outside of time, so He knows who will choose Him and who won't. But once we say "yes" to Him, God becomes sovereign over our lives. This means that even if we make decisions that seem "wrong," He leads us back to the path He has for us. Sometimes the things that seem "bad" turn out to be for our ultimate good.
I see this most clearly when I look back at my life at 19. I was attending college in a pre-law program, an honor student with the marks to be accepted into Law at McGill University. On the surface I was a success. But behind the scenes I was falling apart: deep in depression, working 30 hours a week, taking seven courses, and eventually dropping out of school.
For most of my life I regretted this. But through my dream, the Lord showed me the truth: if I had made the "right" decision and stayed in school, I would have completely derailed in my walk with Him. The reality is that academic success had turned me into an arrogant "know-it-all." If I had kept going on that road and become a lawyer, I don't even want to think about the man I would have become. God allowed me to fall into my addictions so that I would be saved from that future and learn to walk in humility and love.
If you have given your life to Christ but live in regret, unable to understand why certain things have happened, I want to call you to faith. For the child of God, no experience is wasted. As Romans 8:28 promises, all things work together for good for those who love Him. Your "failures" may have been the very things that kept you from a version of yourself that didn't need God. Your "wrong" turns may have been the only way to get you to the place where you would finally listen to His voice. Move forward. He is the Master Architect, and He is finishing the good work He started in you.