By J.R. Miller
"Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes." Isaiah 54:2
It is a great thing for a man to be able by his influence on others, to enrich their lives. It is said that Michael Angelo once paid a visit to the studio of Raphael, when the artist was absent. On an easel there was a canvas with the outline of a human form--beautiful--but too small. Michael Angelo took a brush and wrote under the figure the word "Amplius"--larger. The same word might be written under many lives. They may be good and beautiful--but they are too small. They need to be enlarged. They have not sufficient height or breadth.
There are many people who live in only one room, so to speak. They are intended to live in a house with many rooms: rooms of the mind, rooms of the heart, and rooms of taste, imagination, sentiment, and feeling. But these upper rooms are left unused, while they live in the basement.
A story is told of a Scotch nobleman who, when he came into possession of his estates, set about providing better houses for his people, who were living huddled together in single-roomed cottages. So he built for them pretty, comfortable houses. But in a short time each family was living as before, in one room, and renting the rest of the house. They did not know how to live in higher, better ways. The experiment taught him, that people could not be really benefitted by anything done for them merely from the outside.
Horace Bushnell put it in an epigram--"The soul of improvement--is the improvement of the soul." It is not a larger house which is needed for a man--but a larger man in the house. A man is not made better by giving him more money, better furniture, finer pictures, richer carpets--but by giving him knowledge, wisdom, good principle, strength of character; by teaching him love.
Some lives are narrow, by reason of the way they have let circumstances dwarf them. But we must not say that poverty has this effect--for many who are poor, who have to live in a little house, with few comforts and no luxuries, live a life that is large and free, as wide as the sky in its joy; while on the other hand there are those who have everything earthly that heart could desire, yet whose lives are narrow.
There are some to whom life has been so heavy a burden, that they are ready to drop by the way. They pray for health, and illness comes with its suffering and its expense. Their work is hard. They have to live in continual discomfort. Their associations are uncongenial. There seems no hope of relief. When they awake in the morning, their first consciousness is of the load they must lift and begin again to carry. Their disheartenment has continued so long that it has grown into hopelessness. The message to such is: "Enlarge the place of your tent." No matter how many or how great are the reasons for discouragement, a Christian should not let bitterness enter his heart and blind his eyes--so that he cannot see the blue sky and the shining stars.
Looked at from an earthly view-point, could any life have been more narrow in its condition than Christ's? Think who he was--the Son of God, sinless, holy, loving, and infinitely gentle of heart. Then think of the life into which he came--the relentless hatred of him, the bitter enmity which pursued him, the rejection of love which met him at every step. Think of the failure of his mission, (as it seemed), his betrayal and death. Yet he was never discouraged. He never grew bitter. How did he overcome the narrowness? The secret was love. The world hated him--but he loved on. His own received him not, rejected him--but his heart changed not toward them. Love saved him from being embittered by the narrowness. This is the one secret that will save any life from the narrowing influence of the most distressing circumstances. Widen your tent! Make room in it for Christ and for your neighbor.
There was a woman who had become embittered by a long experience of sickness, and of injustice and wrong, until she was shut up in a prison of hopelessness. Then, by reason of the death of a brother, a little motherless child was brought to her door. The door was opened reluctantly at first; the child was not warmly welcomed. Yet when she was received, Christ entered with her, and at once the dreary home began to grow brighter. The narrowness began to be enlarged. Other human needs came and were not turned away. In blessing others--the woman was blessed herself. Today there is no happier home than hers. Try it if you are discouraged. Begin to serve those who need your love and ministry. Encourage some other disheartened one--and your own discouragement will pass away. Brighten another's lonely lot--and your own will be brightened.
Some lives are made narrow by their limitations. Men seem not to have the same chance that others have. They may be physically incapacitated for holding their place in the march of life. Or they may have failed in business after many years of hard toil, and may lack the courage to begin again. They may have been hurt by folly or sin, and not seem able to take the flights they used to take. There are some people in every community who, for one cause or another, do not seem to have a chance to make much of their life. But whatever it may be which shuts one in a narrow environment, as in a little tent, the gospel of Christ brings a message of hope and cheer. Its call ever is, "Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide."
There is danger that some of us overdo our contentment. We regard as an impassable wall, certain obstacles and hindrances which God meant to be, to us, only inspirers of courage. Difficulties are not intended to stop our efforts--but to arouse us to our best. We give up too easily. We conclude that we cannot do certain things, and think we are submitting to God's will in giving up without trying to overcome, when in fact we are only showing our laziness. We suppose that our limitations are part of God's plan for us, and that we have only to accept them and make the best of them. In some cases this is true--there are barriers that are impassable--but in many cases God wants us to gain the victory over the limitations. The call ever is, "Enlarge the place of your tent!"
If there can be no physical victory over physical handicaps, there can always at least be a mental victory. We should never accept of captivity, which shuts our soul in any prison. Our spirit may be free, though our bodily life is shut up in a prison of circumstances. An English writer tells of two birds, caught and put into cages side by side. The starling began to resist and struggle, flying against the wires of its cage in vain efforts to escape. The canary accepted its captivity, and flying up on a bar, began to sing, filling all the place about with glad songs. The former bird was a captive indeed, shut up in a narrow, hopeless prison. The other turned its captivity into widest liberty and its narrow cage into a palace of victory. We say the starling acted very foolishly, and that the canary showed true wisdom. Which course do we take when we find ourselves shut up in any narrow, imprisoned life?
Life should never cease to widen. People talk about the "dead line"--it used to be fifty years; now it probably is less. After crossing that line, they tell us, a man cannot do his best. It is not true--at least it should not be true. A man ought to be at his best during the last years of his life. He ought always to be enlarging the place of his tent until its curtains are finally pushed out into the limitless spaces of immortality!
