Two undefeated college football teams, Michigan and Washington, faced off tonight for the national championships. Michigan won the game and is the National Champ, 34 to 13. I was rooting for Washington, but it is my first time on their side this entire season. They were the Pac-12 champs, so I was hoping they would win.

Winning or losing a game of such magnitude and with such a large audience has got to be a significant emotional high or low, depending on which team a person was on. I expect that the players on the Washington team will replay at least a dozen plays over and over in their minds for the next several weeks, plays that were so close but didn’t quite have enough of something to make a difference. It will be the ultimate in “if only” thoughts.

Imagine standing before Jesus at the end of your life at the “Judgment Seat of Christ,” and He does a replay of your life. Not your entire life, just those moments where you had an opportunity to do something with your life that mattered, but you missed them or you chose not to do them because it was hard.

2 Corinthians 5:10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.

1 Corinthians 3:13-15 Each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work. If any man’s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.

Matthew 25:24-28 And the one also who had received the one talent came up and said, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow and gathering where you scattered no seed. And I was afraid, and went away and hid your talent in the ground. See, you have what is yours.’ But his Master answered and said to him, ‘You wicked, lazy slave.

Heaven is heaven, but I think there will be a lot of regret on the part of many people. I wonder how long it will last, that “if only” thinking.