Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.  Psalm 90:12

I picked it up from my friend Ken Gaydos, and I suspect that he got the idea from someone he had heard.  It’s concluding an interview with the question, “If you could live your life all over again, what would you do differently?”

In his book, Who Switched the Price Tags?, Tony Campolo tells about a survey in which people over age 95 were asked that same question, “If you could live your life over again, what would you do differently?”  Most of the responses fell into three categories.  Most people wished they had risked more. For them life had been too safe, too calculated.  They fell into a routine and were afraid to break out of it‑‑same job, same neighborhood, same environment, same routine, day in and day out. They wonder what adventures they missed because they were fearful of leaving the security of the routine behind.

Others wished that they had concentrated more on what was really important.  For them, life had been filled with the details of the routine.  The good had become the enemy of the best.  As they grew older their schedule became more compressed with each passing year, and they look back and say to themselves, “Is this all there is to life?”

The third category of people expressed the feeling they wished they had done something worthwhile which would have lived on long after they died.  Such was not the English missionary, what Donald Cole, tells about. She had no family, and upon her death in a faraway country, natives sold everything she possessed, and when sod grew over her grave, it was as if she had never existed.  Well, not quite.  You see, she had invested herself in the lives of the group she served.  She taught them to read and write.  She taught them a knowledge of the Word of God, and when Donald Cole later arrived where she had lived, she found a solid legacy of faith in the lives of these people.  She left behind a testimony to her life, a living legacy in flesh and blood.

“If you could live your live over again, what would you do differently?”  Dr. Harold Lindsell was a gifted Bible scholar and author.  When he answered that question, he surprisingly said that he would study Hebrew and Greek, something he had never been able to do, in spite of the fact that his knowledge of the Word far surpasses the knowledge of most men who teach those languages.

When I asked the late Oswald Sanders the question, then 85 years of age, a one‑time attorney turned missionary statesman and Bible college president, he surprisingly said he would not do anything differently.  He had no regrets having served the Lord.  For him life had been an adventure and he had well invested his life for the cause of Jesus Christ.

There is one more person of whom I would like to ask that question.  It is you, friend.  If you could live your life all over again, what would you do differently?  Now think carefully before you answer.  In some cases, what’s done is done, but in other cases, what you would do, if you could do it over again, can yet be done.  What’s to keep you from doing an in-flight correction and begin to move towards that goal?  Instead of decrying what you haven’t done or weren’t able to do, focus on what you need to do and what God wants you to do. You can still make a difference. Until your frail body has been deprived of life and breath, it’s never too late to start over again.

Resource reading: Psalm 90: 9-17