Bob Santos. Say Goodbye to Regret. Indiana PA: SfMe Media, 2017. Print.
The title promises: Say Goodbye to Regret. Is that even possible?
The Great Gatsby tells us:
“Can’t repeat the past?” he [Gatsby] cried incredulously, “Why of course you can!”
Gatsby’s tragedy is that that is impossible. What is done is over, and we have only the present.
How do we handle our regrets? Bob Santos provides an answer, and, no, it does not involve mansions or stolen bonds. The key is wisdom. We need wisdom to be able to overcome our regrets. We need wisdom to make better decisions in the future.
Santos starts right at the beginning. You think you have regrets? What about Adam and Eve? They had it made! They were living a perfect life in a perfect environment and they gave it away for some fruit! They believed the devil’s lie, and they spent the rest of their long lives remembering how great it used to be.
Say Goodbye to Regret begins with a Gospel presentation. We cannot undo what we have done. We need someone to redeem us and our situation.
After we accept God’s Gospel, how do we live? The Bible tells us very simply “the righteous shall live by faith.” (Romans 1:17) Adam and Eve fell because they did not believe what God said about the tree. So we are to live by trusting in God and His Word.
Santos notes that today we people are faced with so many ideas from so many sources that we are constantly making decisions. This leads to what he calls decision fatigue. I have heard others describe this as burnout. Santos then presents God’s provision: “The wisdom from above.” (James 3:17)
Three different verses all say “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” (Psalm 111:10, Proverbs 1:7, 9:10) Santos devotes two chapters discussing the necessity of the fear of God. Yes, God loves us so much that He sent His Son, but we need to respect Him and hold Him in awe. Then we begin to see our actions have consequences and God can give us the power to have the wisdom to make the best decisions. “When reverence and respect begin to flavor all we do, we will be well on our way to pursuing heavenly wisdom and saying goodbye to earthly regret.” (200)
Besides presenting Bible teaching, Santos shares from his own personal experiences—growing up the son of immigrants in a broken home, becoming a Christian believer at the age of nineteen, and serving as a husband and father and pastor. Some of his most effective testimonies come from the fifteen years he was a college campus minister.
The subtitle of this book in some ways sums up his theme: Discovering the Secret to a Blessed Life. That is what God wants for all of us, and that is what Santos demonstrates. There is an anointing on this book, and those who take it to heart will have a greater blessing than they did before picking it up.
Disclosure of Material: We received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher through the BookCrash book review program, which requires an honest, though not necessarily positive, review.