“Why do I do what I do when I know what I know?” Elder Yoshihiko Kikuchi.
Elder Kikuchi shared that quote that I’ve embraced at a mission leadership conference in Bellevue, Washington in 1992. I was a full time missionary with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints at the time, and often felt out of place among other elders in the mission field. I guess I had lived a different life than most of them. Or so I presumed. The brunt message of that quote, to me, is that we usually know better than to do the things we do wrong. As an adult raised to know the Lord and having many blessings in my life, I think there must be a strikingly few sins I’ve committed that I don’t know were sins before I proceeded to commit them. Thus, regret.
You know that feeling you get when you know you’re doing something wrong. I’m not talking about afterward. I’m talking about when you’re on your way to do something wrong. Something you know is wrong. It’s not ambiguous; not even questionable. You get a wild mix of excitement, fear, nervousness, anxiety, and fog. The fog, especially. You’ve decided to do something you know you have no place doing, but you are just going to do it anyway. Your higher functioning brain just fogs the consideration of consequences, of likely pain or cost or effect. That fog is the worst. If someone were to ask you what you were thinking, you’d say “I don’t know!” All the wisdom and insight and intelligence and experience you’ve built up over time just gets… foggy. And you choose the thing that ninety nine percent of your mind, soul, and body is telling you STOP. Your body literally shakes – not in excitement or anticipation, but in internal conflict. That fog is the natural you. It is in conflict with all that is holy and good and righteous. But you do it anyway.
If you’re somehow blessed enough to not know this feeling; to have not gone down the path of no return; praise God! And pray for clarity that you don’t experience the fog of grievous sin. Of missing the mark so treacherously.
If you’re honest with yourself about when you are tempted to do something I’ll call stupid, you’ll setup barriers in your life to avoid going near those choices again. If you don’t, you will eventually fail. You’ll push the speed limit a little more each time until you’re not afraid of speed anymore. You’ll allow yourself to ponder that unrighteous desire until fulfilling it is the obvious choice amidst the fog.
If you’re not so blessed and you have gone down that path that you know you shouldn’t – maybe even so much so that you hardly even get anxious about it anymore – you may not even regret it. For now. The fog remains as the only constant, and you’re so deeply changed that your old inhibitions seem childish.
Some might call this an addiction. It probably is. Gordon Bruin writes in his book “Language of Recovery” about how our brain becomes wired to the habit such that it requires a re-wiring to escape the new norm. We know that healing is possible because the Lord promised us so. But there is no recovery that doesn’t include a long hard path of undoing what we can undo, suffering through the state we are in, begging for forgiveness of those we have harmed, and living a new course of life a little wiser and a little more humble. And through grace, a little more peaceful.
Something I heard or saw last weekend reminded me of something I did when I was a teen. A couple friends and I were off hiking in the woods with no real objective except to have fun. We liked to think we were survivalists or special operators or something. We each had our “Rambo” knives, and various other gear. Without really knowing where we were going but confident we could find our way home, we had been gone a few hours. Before long, we came across a mostly open field with grass that was at least four feet tall. It was the perfect scene for sneaking across the field undetected by … whoever might be watching. No one was watching or looking for us, but it was exciting to think like that. About halfway across the field we noticed three tractor trailers parked near the far edge of the field. We low-crawled and crouched our way the rest of the way there.
These trailers were clearly old and had been here some time. The tires were flat or dry rotted. The metal siding was discolored and any decals had long faded or pealed off. Once we had surveilled the entire scene, we knew we were alone and also that we were in a place we didn’t belong. That’s when the ideas started popping in my head. And the anticipation started piquing my interest. And the fog began setting in.
I wanted to see what was in these trailers. It might be a treasure trove. I convinced my friends that we should check it out. They resisted and I called them chickens. They gave in when I started opening the first rear door. The slow, loud creaking of that metal hinge was absolutely terrible. But when I didn’t hear anyone yelling “Who’s out there?!”, I decided to proceed. The first one was empty. The second one was not. It had boxes and bins of equipment and materials from a construction company. Lots of cool equipment! My friends were coaxing me to just leave, but I decided to grab some things that seemed cool. Or valuable. I didn’t know. A survey transit on a metal tripod was the jackpot.
Each of us grabbed a few things and climbed out of the trailer. We checked again to make sure we were safe, and then we crouch-ran through the field with our prizes. The fog had fully set in. I didn’t think through how wrong it was to steal, that the value of the items we stole could put us in serious trouble, or that we didn’t even know what to do with it. The fog of justification (“no body has even been in there in forever”) had taken away any wisdom my parents had taught me about what is right. One of my friends’ neighbors was a known bad actor. He was always in trouble with the law and family and everyone else. So naturally, I thought of bringing the gear to him. He didn’t ask where we got it. He gave us each a twenty to just forget about it.
And forgetting about it was my full intention. I was not a kid that made a habit of stealing. Not that much. I certainly didn’t see myself as the kind of kid that would brake the law. I thought I was a pretty good kid for a thirteen year old with a steady family and my only quasi-criminal record being the time I raided a dessert shack, collected classified gear from a dumpster, or shot at the caged lynx cats at the squadron display on base with my home made bow and arrow. Basically, not even a real rap sheet.
Looking back, I had let the fog of poor decisions build up so much that I didn’t even see it as wrong unless I got caught. That’s sort of been my cycle in life: Presume I’m ok until I confess how far off track I’ve gone. I suspect I’m not so special there.
So when I thought about whether I might include this story about what is probably grand theft, I initially decided I wouldn’t want to glorify my sins, but upon greater reflection, I’ve realized there is a reason I am sharing these experiences. I hope to share what I’ve experienced and learned, perhaps such that my kids or their kids or maybe your kids won’t make some of the mistakes I’ve made. I want the end product, if it’s not too presumptive to think the compilation will result in a published product, to be more than a stack of stories but rather a story of what made me Bryant and how deeply I felt, how strongly I prayed, how heavily I cried, how wonderfully I joyed, and even how blessed I lived – despite my countless poor choices.
I think that’s what both regret and healing are all about. I do indeed deeply regret the things I’ve done. Especially those things that hurt the ones I love. I have often wished I didn’t go down that path or that I had learned from the first foray into dangerous places. I have many, many, many times wished I had listened to the Still, Small Voice of the Holy Ghost when He prompts me to turn away from sin. Oh, that I had not hurt my mom’s feelings or let down my dad. Oh, how I wish I had not responded in anger or in rage. That I had not decided it didn’t matter any more. That I had not relinquished self sacrifice so people wouldn’t take advantage of me; I was far better off choosing the right and letting the consequence follow. Oh, that I had not broken the heart of my wife or lost the confidence of my children. The regret would overwhelm me. And it did for many years. So much so that it built up until I was past feeling and decided – erroneously so – that I was a lost soul not worth redemption.
But there is something far more powerful than regret. Even when we are at our lowest, and would choose to live in the fog of ignorance and regret, when we are at our lowest low, that Still Small Voice beckons. The child in us listens better than the hardened adult. Our living Father in Heaven calls out and we hear His voice. It’s at that point that our joy miraculously exceeds our pain.
Hope! Even when we don’t believe we are worth saving, our Savior Jesus Christ gives us hope! We may not be where we wanted to be, and we may not comprehend how we could ever rise above the state of numbness, fog, and regret, but our God is mighty to save!!!
Regret is washed away and replaced with healing and peace in Christ.
We will remember – sometimes triggered by a random sight – the foolish things we have done. We will remember the pain we have caused. We will remember that hopeless state of fog and regret. But we need not dwell there. We have been saved from our sin!
Hallelujah! We are saved!
Hallelujah! I am saved!
Hallelujah! Praise Him Who Is Mighty to Save!
As I wrap up this short story, I am again convicted. I need not think that confessing the act of stealing from an unknown stranger I’ve never met some forty years ago is a sufficient proxy for the much greater sins I have committed. I know the condition of my book of life. If it were not washed in the blood of Christ, what a wicked book it would be! Certainly, I can not – and should not – write about all of my sins here. Doing so would stir up pain for those I love. One of the principles of the Addiction Recovery Program was that in seeking forgiveness, we should not allow our efforts to further harm others. Step eight was not an easy step, but it was deeply needed and throughly helpful. Perhaps I can write about my addiction recovery path in a way that helps others, comforts those I love, and doesn’t open old wounds. Nonetheless, I can attest to the beauty of healing and the wonder of being forgiven by our loving Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
This is not about a single mistake, nor is it a catalog of wrongdoing. It is about a pattern I have come to recognize in myself over time. A moment before the fall, when clarity fades and conviction grows quiet. A mental and spiritual fog that settles in not after sin, but before it. That fog has been one of the most consistent markers of my poor decisions, long before I had the maturity or language to name it.
What I describe here is not ambiguity or confusion about right and wrong. It is the far more dangerous state of knowing full well what is wrong and proceeding anyway. In those moments, wisdom does not vanish, but it is muffled. Experience does not disappear, but it is ignored. The body reacts in protest even as the will presses forward. That internal conflict has followed me from youth into adulthood, and it has carried consequences I would never have chosen with a clear mind.
I do not share these experiences to excuse my actions or to dramatize them. I share them because I believe many people will recognize this fog in themselves, even if they have never named it. Some have been spared from it, and for that I am genuinely grateful. Others have walked through it so many times that it no longer alarms them. Both conditions are dangerous in different ways, and both require humility and vigilance.
This is also not a story of instant repentance or painless restoration. Healing, when it came, came slowly. It required confession, restraint, restitution where possible, and a willingness to accept consequences rather than argue against them. Most of all, it required grace. Grace not as an abstraction, but as a lived reality through Jesus Christ, who redeems even those who believe they are no longer worth redeeming.
If this story serves any purpose beyond my own reflection, I hope it is this: that someone reading it will recognize the fog early, take it seriously, and choose a better path than I often did. And for those already burdened by regret, I hope it stands as a quiet witness that regret does not have the final word. Healing is real. Forgiveness is real. And peace, by the mercy of God, is possible.