Forest Gump’s momma said, “Stupid is as stupid does.” Well, we all does stupid sometimes. I probably feel stupid more often than I deserve. But I deserve it often enough. Everybody has moments of stupid that haunt them, sometimes for the rest of their lives. A college friend once told me how he would lie in bed at night and relive an unfortunate incident from high school. It only took a moment for all the shame and embarrassment to come rushing back. He would lie rigid in his bed and moan out loud. He told me that more than thirty years ago. I suspect he still thinks about it at night.
I could make a list. Indeed, I do make a list. It’s one of the main things I dwell on in the middle of the night when I can’t sleep. It’s either death or stupid. I worry about both. As it turns out, I can’t do much about either. Reason tells me that I ought to ignore what I can’t do anything about. But it never seems to work out that way. The sense of helplessness only increases my anxiety.
In his book Spiritual Depression, Martyn Lloyd Jones writes about those who are overcome with regret over “that one sin.” This is the case of “those who are miserable Christians or who are suffering from spiritual depression because of their past–either because of some particular sin in their past, or because of the particular form which sin happened to take in their case.” Sin is stupid but stupid isn’t necessarily sin. Still, the language Lloyd Jones uses helps me to at least diagnose my symptoms. Sometimes the distress I feel is over a particular act of stupidity or because of the particular form that stupidity happened to take.
The feeling I experience in these instances is not just shame and horror, ultimately it is regret. I want to turn back the clock and do things differently. I want to change my past and thereby change my future. I won’t ask the question. I won’t attend the meeting. I will leave the country and go into exile. My whole life will be different after that. And I will live happily ever after.
Now here is what is really interesting about these things that I regret. Most everyone else has forgotten them. Some of the people involved are dead. They probably noticed when the thing occurred, whatever it was. But I doubt that they thought about it much afterward. If they did it is likely that they only shook their heads. While I relived the moment in my mind that night, rewriting the dialogue to give me the advantage and make myself the hero, they were resting in their beds. Or else they were lying awake dwelling on their own version of stupid. The point is they weren’t even thinking about me.
It’s probably not as bad as you think. Even if it is, it won’t last forever. You might think about it for a long time but you will probably be the only one. I suppose I should leave you with three steps for forgetting about all the stupid things you’ve done. If I knew what they were, I’d be practicing them myself. What I can tell you is that as you lie there in bed dwelling on the past, like an old dog worrying a favorite bone, Jesus waits up with you. He is quiet. He does not lecture. He does not try to talk you out of it. He is simply there with you, aware of your pain and your regret. The good news is that Jesus forgives sin. He forgives stupid too.
