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RELIGIOUS CRABS

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International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Dec 30, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 50.

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RELIGIOUS CRABS.

By George H. Hubbard

You all know them. They are the unfortunate disciples who are trying to walk up to heaven backwards. They seek to develop Christian character by a careful system of self-examination and review. They seize eagerly upon every anniversary, such as a birthday, New Year's, Lord's Supper, etc., as occasions for retrospection. The effect is doleful enough. They are forever mourning over their slow progress. And what wonder? The crab is not a model of speed or grace, and what could be expected of those who imitate him?
The fact is, men are not constructed for walking backwards, either physically or spiritually. Let anyone try to walk backwards up a long, steep hill, and see what progress he will make. If he attempts to hurry, he will surely stumble. It is not a natural way to walk. God made us to walk with our faces to the front.
It is the same in religious life. If we keep our eyes turned backward, instead of looking forward, we shall surely fall again and again, and our progress will, of necessity, be slow and irregular. Many Christians look back perpetually at some past experience that brought great peace and joy; or they dwell in memory upon some period of unusual activity and consecration, and while their gaze is thus fixed behind them, they pass by present opportunities of service, they neglect the duties of to-day. Others, looking back, see only mistakes and failures, and are discouraged. They fear to undertake present duty, lest in that they should be equally unsuccessful. It matters not whether the past be bright or dark, to dwell upon it only hinders our onward course.
Away with useless retrospection! We have too much of it. There is no strength to be derived from looking backward, nothing but weakness and discouragement. Our strength is in forgetting. Look forward. Progress is the watchword of Christianity, the ideal of Christian life and action. That is no true spirituality that lives wholly in the past.
‘Let the dead past bury its dead— Act, act in the living present.’
If we look backward, it should be but to forget the past, not to dwell upon it, to gloat or mourn over it, as the case may be.
It is useless to dwell on our past lives, because we cannot change them. Deeds are immortal. That which is done can never be undone. Pondering upon it will do no good. Judas pondered upon his sin till he was driven to despair and committed another sin. Peter turned away from his sin, and forgot it in earnest service, showing the reality of his repentance and receiving free forgiveness.
To look backward is useless, because no past experience is of present full value. A man may have been a saint a year ago; but if he has forsaken his holy life, if he has ceased to live for God and his fellow-men, and is to-day engrossed in selfishness and sin, of what value is his last year's saintliness? The remembrance of it only makes his present condition worse by contrast.
On the other hand, no past experience can hinder our present obedience and salvation. It matters not how sinful or how empty may be the record of the past life, or how many its falls, to every soul that desires God's blessings to-day, that blessing is freely offered.
But the best of all reasons why we should look forward, and not backward, is that there are greater things for us in the future. No Christian need live forever in the light of a past experience, however grand it may have been. Every day may be, and ought to be, brighter and more useful than any day that has preceded it. It matters not how much you may have enjoyed of God's love and power in the past, he is willing and able to give you much richer experiences in the future.
Sir Isaac Newton, toward the close of his life, lamented the fact that, with a whole ocean of truth lying spread out before him, he had, with all his study, only been able to gather a few pebbles from the shore. If this is true of science, how much more of religion. The most noble Christian the world has ever seen has done no more than this. He has but gathered a few pebbles from the shore. Yet how often we are satisfied with these. We toss the pebbles from one hand to the other, and admire their beauty, and we think these are all that we want, while before us rolls the vast ocean of God's love, whose depths are yet unexplored.
It would be well if young Christians could rid themselves of this idea of retrospection. There is a better use for Sundays and anniversaries. Make them occasions for looking forward, adopting the motto of Paul, ‘Forgetting the things which are behind, . . . I press on.’—Rev. George H. Hubbard, in S. S. Times.