Isaiah 5:4 What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it?

Perhaps this should have been the closing verse, but would that accomplish what I need to point out? Notice how I used should and would? This is the last in the trilogy of shoulda, woulda, coulda.

The could is full of regret. It is the past seen thru the eyes of experience. It dwells in regret as if it were a live thing, but it is not, it is a dead thing. There is no dwelling on the past that changes anything about it.

Could have is the most dangerous of these three because it acknowledges the skill, talent, gift and ability of someone that never existed. It is the vanity or all vanities. It pulls at the present to stop that which is possible in the now.

When I repented of the life I had lived the Lord spoke into my mind and said, “What is stopping you now?” I knew the answer as soon as He asked. “Nothing.” That was true but hidden within the answer was a truth I would have to experience. I was my only obstacle. I had to get over myself.

It would take years for me to grasp the truth of Isaiah 5:4, that nothing I did or did not do changed the condition of the Vineyard. Yes it affected the world, yes it affected my family, yes it affected my friends, but I did not change the Vineyard. My life is not so important that I can frustrate the will of God.

Yet He loves me and wants to include me in His works.

Ephesians 2:10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

There’s that word “should” again.