Go Forward!'. 3
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There are human lives which may be made to shine in the fairest beauty that Christian culture can produce. They may be freed from all that is coarse and unrefined. They may be nurtured into gentleness of manner and sweetness of spirit. Yet in certain experiences of testing, undivine qualities are brought out, unhallowed tempers and dispositions are revealed. The trouble is in the nature itself. Sin is still in the heart. The only way to be made perfect is to have the very springs of the life cleansed. "I long to be clean all through." That is the kind of men and women we should pray to become. It was the lifelong prayer of Frances Willard, "O God make me beautiful within!" Think what spiritual beauty there would be in any church, what healing for the world, if all its members were thus made clean, through and through, if all were really beautiful within.
It is to this that we are called each New Year, for example, each birthday. We are summoned to leave our routine Christian life, the commonplace spirituality which has so long satisfied us, and turn northward. We are called to be saints—not when we are dead and our bodies have been buried out of sight—but now, while we are busy in the midst of human affairs, while we live and meet temptations every day, while men see us, and are touched and impressed by what we do. Shall we not give up and leave behind our conventional spirituality, our fashionable holiness, our worldly conformity—and be holy men, holy women, turning northward to get nearer to God?
We need to be always watchful lest we allow our spiritual life to deteriorate in its quality as we go on from year to year. This is especially one of the temptations of advancing old age. There seems less to live for, less to draw us onward and upward, and inspiration is apt to grow less strong. The best seems behind us, and zest for toil and struggle grows less keen. We yield to weariness, we relax our discipline and self-restraint, we do not so much mind the little slips, the minute neglects, the lowering of tone in feeling, in sentiment, in conduct. We are losing our life's brightness and beauty, and we know it not. We allow ourselves to become less thoughtful, less obliging, less kindly, less forgetful of self, less charitable toward the mistakes of others, less tolerant of others' faults and weaknesses. People to whom we have been a comfort in the past, begin to note a change in the degree of our congenialness and our spirit of helpfulness. We are not interested in the needs and troubles of others, as we used to be. Friends apologize for us by saying that we are not well, that we have cares and sufferings of our own, or that we are growing old. But neither illness nor age nor pain should make us less Christlike. Paul tells us that though our outward man is decaying, yet ourinward man should be renewed day by day. The true life within us should become diviner continually in its beauty—purer, stronger, sweeter, even when the physical life is wasting.
To all men there come, along the years, experiences that are hard to endure. Disappointments and misfortunes come—in one form or another. Business ventures do not always succeed. In some cases there are years of continual and repeated disaster. Ill health saps the energy and strength of some men, leaving them unequal to the struggle for success, and compelling them to drop out of the race. Life is hard for many people, and there are those who do not continue brave and sweet in the struggle. Some lose heart and become soured in experiences of adversity. Nothing is sadder then to see a man give way to disheartenment and depression, and grow contentious and gloomy or soured in spirit.
Renan, in one of his books, recalls an old French legend of a buried city on the coast of Brittany. With its homes, public buildings, churches, and thronged streets, it sank instantly into the sea. The legend says that the city's life goes on as before down beneath the waves. The fishermen, when in calm weather they row over the place, sometimes think they can see the gleaming tips of the church spires deep in the water, and fancy they can hear the chiming of bells in the old belfries, and even the murmur of the city's noises. There are men who, in their later years, seem to have an experience like this. The life of youthful hopes, dreams, successes, and joys had been sunk out of sight, submerged in misfortunes and adversities, vanished altogether. All that remains is a memory. In their discouragement they seem to hear the echoes of the old songs of hope and gladness, and to catch visions of the old beauty and splendor—but that is all. They have nothing real left. They have grown hopeless and bitter.
But this is not worthy living for one who is immortal, who was born to be a child of God. The hard things are not meant to mar our life,—they are meant to make it all the braver, the worthier, the nobler. Adversities and misfortunes are meant to sweeten our spirits—not to make them sour and bitter.
We need to think of these things. There should be a constant gaining, never a losing in our spiritual life. Every year should find us living on a higher plane than the year before. Old age should always be the best of life, not marked by emptiness and decay—but by richer fruitfulness and more gracious beauty. Paul was growing old, when he spoke of forgetting things behind and reaching forth to things ahead. His best was yet to be attained. So it should always be with older Christian. We must ever be turning northward, toward fuller life and holier beauty. This can be the story of our experience, only if our life is hidden with Christ in God. Torn away from Christ, no life can keep its zest or its radiance.
Another phase of this call, as it comes to us in life's quiet days, is to increased activity. We cannot fulfill our Master's requirement for us as Christians, unless we are ready for self-denying devotion to service. A birthday or the beginning of a new year, is a most fitting time for renewed interest in Christian work. "You have compassed this mountain long enough." That is, you have been going through the old rounds, living the old way—long enough. Is any one of us satisfied with the measure of work we have done for Christ during the past year, for example? "Laborers for Christ," is the rule of the kingdom. The work of the church is not meant to be done by a few special people. Some portion of it is to be done by each one, and that portion is not transferable. No one can do your work for you, for each one has enough of his own to fill his hands. No one can get any other to do his allotted task for him. All any one can do is his own little part. Are there any of us who have done nothing?
We need not press the question for the past, for what has not been done in its proper time—cannot be done now. The hands that have been idle through a past year can do nothing in the new year to make up the lack. If you have left a blank where there ought to have been beautiful work done—there can be only a blank there forever. You cannot fill it now. Toil as you will any new year, you cannot make the year you left empty—anything but empty. We cannot go back over our life and do omitted or neglected duties. Shall we not cease going round and round in the same little grooves, and turn northward, with our faces toward God and heaven? Our Master is not exacting—he does not require of us what we cannot do. All expected of anyone is his part—what he can do. No one is required to do the work of the whole world—but everyone is required to be faithful in his own place. Lincoln said: "I am not bound to win—but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed—but I am bound to live up to the light I have."
We get into the habit of talking about Christian life and work, as if it were something altogether apart from common work, the work we do on our business days. But if we are living as we should, everything we are called to do, is work for Christ. We need heavenly grace for our secular tasks and duties—quite as much as for our religious services and occupations. We need grace for all our life on earth, not only for our worship, our religious activities, our Christian service—but for our business affairs, our amusements, all our tasks and duties, our home matters, our plans and pleasures. The smallest things in our lives should get their inspiration from heaven.
Thus we are ever being called to a new life—a holier life, greater activity, and better service. "You have compassed this mountain long enough—turn northward!" Break away from the routine. Do not keep on doing just what you have been doing heretofore. Do not be content to go over the same old rounds. Turn northward—start in new lines, with your face toward God. Do larger things than you have done heretofore. Pray more fervently. Love better, more sweetly, more helpfully. Let Christ have all your life. Do not merely go round the mountain's base—climb up its side! Every time you compass it, gain a little higher range, get nearer heaven, nearer God.
We never should forget with what sympathy heaven looks down upon us continually. God is not a hard master. He knows how frail we are. He remembers that we are dust. Therefore he is patient with us. He judges us graciously. If we try to do our best, though we seem to fail, marring our work, he understands and praises what we have done. With such a master we should never lose heart, never grow discouraged, never become depressed, never let gloom or bitterness into our heart—but should always keep brave, hopeful, sweet—forgetting the past and stretching forward!
"Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." Philippians 3:12-14
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