Days of Heaven upon Earth

That your days may be multiplied …as the days of heaven upon the earth. DEUTERONOMY 11:21

Simpson’s daily devotional, still in print more than a century later, takes its title from a phrase in Deuteronomy: days of heaven upon the earth. The promise was made to Israel about life in the land. Simpson took it as a description of what the indwelling Christ makes possible in ordinary time — not an escape from earth, and not a postponement until heaven, but a quality of daily life that belongs to another country.

Not escape, but transformation

It is worth being clear about what he was not saying. He was not describing a life without difficulty. His own contained a nervous collapse, a heart condition, financial insecurity, the loss of children, public controversy and a dark final illness. Whatever days of heaven upon earth meant to him, it plainly did not mean pleasant circumstances. Nor was he recommending detachment — the spirituality that copes with the world by withdrawing attention from it. Simpson was one of the most engaged men of his generation, running rescue missions and orphanages and sending workers to the hardest places on the map. What he meant was that the ordinary day — the same day, with the same trouble in it — is transformed when it is lived in company with Someone.

Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee. ISAIAH 26:3

The peace there is not the absence of trouble but the presence of a settled mind, and the condition is a direction of attention.

Moment by moment

Simpson’s practical counsel centred on the smallness of the unit. We tend to think of the spiritual life in large blocks — a good year, a bad season, a period of dryness. He taught believers to think in moments, because a moment is the only thing anyone can actually manage.

Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. MATTHEW 6:34

The grace supplied is for today, and attempting to face next month’s difficulty with today’s supply is the commonest cause of Christian exhaustion. Simpson pointed out that Israel’s manna could not be stored, and that this was a mercy rather than an inconvenience.

As thy days, so shall thy strength be. DEUTERONOMY 33:25

The habit of turning

The practice he recommended is simple enough to be dismissed and difficult enough to take years. It is the habit of turning inwardly to Christ throughout the day — not extended prayer, but a repeated brief recognition that He is present and available: at the start of a task, in the middle of an interruption, before a difficult conversation, on waking in the night.

Because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. PSALM 16:8

Simpson held that this practice, sustained, does more for the quality of a life than any amount of intense but occasional devotion. The person who meets God only in a set half-hour has a religious appointment. The person who has learned to turn has a companion.

Joy as evidence

He gave joy a prominent place, and treated its absence as a symptom worth investigating rather than a temperament to be accepted.

These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. JOHN 15:11

Note whose joy it is. Not a joy we manufacture about our circumstances — His joy, remaining in us. Which means it is not dependent on our circumstances being joyful, and it survives conditions that would extinguish anything we generated ourselves. A caution, though, and Simpson’s own last years supply it. He passed through a period of genuine spiritual darkness at the end of his life, and his friends found it painful to watch in a man who had taught so many about victory. That should be said honestly. Believers experience depression, illness of the mind, and long stretches of dryness, and it is not always a spiritual failure to be corrected. Sometimes it is a burden to be borne, with help, and God does not love such a person less.

The invitation of this chapter is modest and immediate. Not a better year. Today — this afternoon, the next hour — lived in company with Christ.

The discipline of thanksgiving

If one practice above others changes the texture of an ordinary day, Simpson held it was deliberate thanksgiving — and he treated it as a discipline rather than a mood.

In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. 1 THESSALONIANS 5:18

Two things about that command are worth noticing. It is a command, which means it is not conditional on feeling grateful. We can give thanks in the absence of the sensation, and the sensation often follows the practice rather than preceding it. And it is in every thing, not for every thing. Simpson was careful here, because the distinction protects the sufferer. We are not required to call evil good, to describe a bereavement as a blessing, or to pretend that a diagnosis is welcome. We are required to find God present in the middle of it, and to say so.

I will bless the Lord at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth. PSALM 34:1

The practical form he recommended was specific rather than general. Vague gratitude for blessings in the abstract does very little; naming three particular things, out loud, does a surprising amount — and it works best on the days when the list is hardest to assemble. He connected this directly to the theme of the chapter. Heaven is a place of unbroken thanksgiving. A believer who is learning the habit now is not merely improving his mood; he is practising the native language of the country he is travelling to.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Practise turning inwardly to Christ at three fixed points tomorrow: before work, at a meal, and before something you are dreading. 2. Stop trying to face next month with today’s grace. Ask only for today. 3. When joy is absent, investigate rather than accepting it as your personality — and if the darkness persists, seek help without shame. 4. Take one dull, ordinary hour and consciously invite Christ into it. Notice what changes and what does not. 5. Read Deuteronomy 33:25 slowly on a day when your strength feels inadequate for what is ahead.

A PRAYER

Lord, I have been waiting for a better season, and You have offered me this afternoon.

Teach me to turn to You in the small units — the interruption, the awkward conversation, the tiredness at three o’clock — rather than saving You for a set half hour.

Let Your joy remain in me, not a cheerfulness I have to manufacture.

And on the days when there is only darkness, hold me anyway, and let me not conclude that You have gone. Amen.