A Larger Christian Life

Enlarge the place of thy tent …spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes. ISAIAH 54:2

Simpson gave one of his books the title A Larger Christian Life, and the phrase captures a conviction that runs through everything he did: that most believers are living in a smaller world than God has provided, and that the limitation is entirely on our side.

Straitened in ourselves

His controlling text was a remark of Paul’s to a difficult congregation.

O ye Corinthians, our mouth is open unto you, our heart is enlarged. Ye are not straitened in us, but ye are straitened in your own bowels. 2 CORINTHIANS 6:11–12

Straitened means narrowed, cramped, confined. Paul tells them that whatever constriction they feel in the relationship is not coming from his end. He is wide open. The narrowness is theirs. Simpson applied this to our dealings with God, and the application is uncomfortable. When our Christian life feels small — when God seems distant, prayer feels mechanical, and the supply appears inadequate — our instinct is to conclude that heaven is being sparing. The apostle’s diagnosis points the other way. The pipe is not narrow at the source.

I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt: open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it. PSALM 81:10

That is an extraordinary invitation, and Simpson observed that most of us respond to it with a very modest request and then complain about the size of the answer.

Three enlargements

He worked the theme out in several directions, and three are worth naming. Larger views of God. Almost every spiritual problem, Simpson thought, traces back to a God who has been mentally reduced — made manageable, predictable, and roughly the size of our own experience. The remedy is not technique but sight.

Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us. EPHESIANS 3:20

Note where Paul sets the ceiling: not at what we ask, which would be generous, but above what we can even conceive of asking. Any request we bring is therefore beneath the limit by definition. Larger faith. Simpson observed that we tend to ask God for what we can already imagine arranging ourselves, with a small margin added for divine assistance. He urged believers to ask for things that would be embarrassing if God did not act — and then to be willing to wait. Larger service. His own life is the argument. He had a comfortable pulpit and gave it up to work among people who could not pay him, and the result was a movement on several continents. He held that most Christians are prevented from any significant usefulness not by lack of gifting but by the smallness of what they have offered.

Enlargement is not always comfortable

The honest half of the chapter, which Simpson did not hide. The verse in Isaiah tells the tent-dweller to lengthen the cords and strengthen the stakes. A larger tent needs deeper anchoring, or the first storm takes it. Enlargement of capacity is generally accompanied by enlargement of pressure, and God rarely gives one without the other. Simpson’s own enlargements came through a nervous collapse, a heart condition, a resignation that cost him his income and his denomination, the burial of children, and the loss of friends on both sides of a controversy he did not start. He was not describing an easier life. He was describing a bigger one.

Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress. PSALM 4:1

That is the honest order in most lives. The distress comes first, and the enlargement is what God does with it.

There is a diagnostic worth applying. Look at what you asked God for this month. Would any of it have required Him to act? Or could most of it have happened through ordinary competence and reasonable luck? The answer tells you the size of the tent you are living in, and it is not a verdict on God’s supply.

Enlarged towards people

The enlargement Simpson pressed hardest was not in faith or service but in affection, because it is the one we are least willing to attempt.

And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men. 1 THESSALONIANS 3:12

Paul’s prayer has two directions, and the second is the difficult one. One toward another covers the people we already like. Toward all men does not. Simpson observed that most Christians have a heart of a fixed size, into which a certain number of people fit, and that we manage the limit by quietly excluding those who are difficult, tedious, foreign, poor, or who have wronged us. The exclusions are never announced; they are simply operated. His prescription was not to feel differently, which nobody can produce on demand, but to act deliberately in the direction of the enlargement and let the affection follow. Speak to the person you have been avoiding. Give to someone who cannot reciprocate. Take an interest in a country you have never thought about.

Now for a recompence in the same, (I speak as unto my children,) be ye also enlarged. 2 CORINTHIANS 6:13

There is a connection here with everything else in the chapter that is easy to miss. A cramped heart towards people generally accompanies a cramped view of God, because our sense of how much we have received governs how freely we give. The person who believes he has been forgiven a great deal finds it strangely easy to be generous, and the person who believes he was not that bad to begin with finds it strangely hard.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Review your recent prayers. How many required God to do something you could not arrange? 2. Ask for one thing this month that would be plainly embarrassing if God did not act. Then wait without withdrawing the request. 3. Identify where you have concluded that God is being sparing. Consider Paul’s diagnosis instead: the narrowness may be at your end. 4. Offer something larger — more time, more money, a willingness you have been withholding — and see what God does with it. 5. Strengthen the stakes as well as lengthening the cords. Deepen a discipline before you seek a wider ministry.

A PRAYER

Father, I have lived in a small tent and blamed the weather.

You are able to do exceeding abundantly above all that I ask or think, and my asking has been careful, modest and mostly within reach of my own competence. Forgive the smallness of it.

Enlarge me — my view of You, my expectation, my service, my heart towards people I find difficult.

And when the enlargement comes through distress, as it usually does, hold me steady. Lengthen my cords, but strengthen my stakes. Amen.