And I hope that you don’t suffer
But take the pain
Hope when the moment comes
You’ll say…

[Chorus]
I, I did it all
I, I did it all
I owned every second
That this world could give
I saw so many places
The things that I did
Yeah, with every broken bone
I swear I lived

         -I Lived, Switchfoot          –

Regrets.

None of us want to have them, but we all do. That item we didn’t buy on sale. That decision we wish we had made the other direction. That opportunity missed. That conversation we never had.

I had two regrets on a trip to England. One was that we did not take the train, or rent the car, to go to Eilean Castle in Scotland and view the amazing countryside surrounding it. By the time we figured it all out, we could have hired a cab to do it in the few hours we had left. But it would have cost more than $300, and was not worth that expense.

The second regret was missing Mumford & Sons. You see, I actually checked their concert schedule multiple times before we left, hoping they would be playing somewhere near our stops. Nothing.

When we arrived at our first hotel, on a whim, I checked their schedule again. New shows listed! Camden, Feb. 22!! Where we are staying!! Only 20 pounds! I feverishly punch in the info to buy tickets.

SOLD OUT.

I see tickets being sold online for 200-300 pounds, and I decide I’ll stop by the club where they are playing next week, the night of the show. Feb 22 arrives, and we buy tickets to see a movie at 8:20. We go to dinner, and then I make Tim help me find Dingwalls, the club where they are to play. We ask all kinds of people and no one knows where it is. We finally stumble upon it, and the line is curiously small. I know the venue only holds 400 some. I go up to the guy at the door and ask if it’s sold out. He kind of smiles and says, ” I think so.” I translated that as, “you idiot, of course it’s sold out. It’s Mumford & Sons.”

I kind of hang around and Tim doesn’t understand my fascination. Did I mention that from the venue to our hotel was probably fifty yards? Fifty yards!! I had come all the way across the ocean, Mumford $ Sonsis playing at our back door, and I don’t get to see them!!

We walked over to the movie, and I sat and moped. How could this come to this end? Then I started all the second guessing. What if there were tickets left? What if we had hung out there longer and someone came along, selling their tickets? What if I just waited and asked again to get in? I continued to mope, but the movie was the Kings Speech, so it did distract me somewhat. But at the end, I did beg Tim to go back to Dingwalls. Because he humors me, we walked back. I knew that there were three other groups opening, so Mumford might not have played much yet.

When we got there, the doors were open, and we could hear Mumford’s music wafting out and tantalizing us. Tim asked if we could get in, and a tall man said no. Another young American couple was there, and they said they had been trying to get in at both entrances the whole show. The tall man left, and several couples left. Then Tim asked the bouncer if we could go in. He said no. So we listened and tried to take pictures through the door.

But a few minutes later, the bouncers heart softened. ” Four die-hard fans? Go on. Go on in and enjoy.” He let us in for free!! We got to see them do five or six songs. Two new ones, Awake My Soul, The Cave. They ended with Little Lion Man.  Marcus even had trouble with his amp and guitar effects, which made me think of home:).

So what did I learn from all of this?

Regrets are horrible- like an awful cold, dreary London weather, or a bad tooth. They constantly gnaw at us. We can’t do anything about the past. Past regrets, we should learn to let go of- to yield to God, and know He can cause all to work together for my good.(Romans 8:28)

But we can do something about the present and the future. We can do some things to avoid the kind of regrets that can be devastating. Don’t want regrets? Plan.

If we had planned ahead about Eillean Donan, we could have made it there. We didn’t know what we really wanted to do, and our confusion and lack of planning made it impossible.

Don’t want regrets? Ask.

It was worth it to ask about getting into Mumford & Sons. And God wants us to ask Him for good things!

Don’t want regrets? Ask again.

It was worth it to ask more than one time about getting in, even if we felt foolish.

Don’t want regrets? Wait and trust.

Sometimes we need to wait patiently for something, and not give up. We waited outside the venue. I believed God wanted to give us something good. Why wouldn’t God want to give us something special? I admit I don’t always believe, and I certainly wasn’t believing as I sat at the movie and moped.

Don’t want regrets? Persevere.

It was worth it to persevere, to wait, to ask and ask and push through- to the end. Mumford & Sons could have easily turned out differently, and I almost let it become a regret. Instead, it became a highlight, and a sign of God’s provision, and that he wants us to believe him for amazing and good things.