It's Some Kind Of Sin To Live Your Whole Life On A Might've Been

American poet John Greenleaf Whittier, who once noted, “For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: It might have been.”

Regret often is more about what we didn’t do than what we did. When we do it, it brings joy. When we don’t, it brings regret. Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda are bad words. “Going to do” leads to a life with nothing done. Doing nothing might just be the worst thing you've ever did.

But it's worse than all that; it might just be a sin.

Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin. James 4:17

Not doing the right thing is wrong! Putting off what needs to be done is as sinful as any wrong act we might perform. It won’t just make us miserable, it makes us lost.

There will be many on judgment day that will cry out “What did we do?” They will have their answer. They didn’t do anything. They didn’t obey. They didn’t follow through. They didn’t do the thing that they needed to do.

What might have been is a sin.

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