Spacious Places

When hard pressed, I cried to the LORD; He brought me into a spacious place. Psalm 118:5 NIV

I love old-timey Western movies.  You know the ones.  The good guys wear white, the bad guys wear black, and our hero hugs his horse more than he embraces his sweetheart.  I especially love the classic chase scene where the bad guy is outrunning the posse, taking all kinds of detours from the trail, only to find himself in a box canyon.  Nowhere to run.  Nowhere to hide.  Game over!

     King David knew all about confining, claustrophobic spaces.  He found himself crouching in dark, dank, little caves, at first hiding from a vengeful, jealous King Saul, then in later years, taking cover from the homicidal rage of his son, Absalom.  If King David had been in a Western movie, he would have sometimes worn a black hat and sometimes worn a white hat, but in either case, he would have the good sense to call on the LORD in his distress. Why did the king have the confidence to pray this kind of boxed-in-a-canyon prayer?

     David was experiencing an agony so great that all he could do was groan out a desperate 911.  Have you ever been there?  Raw, unedited prayers, cried out to the LORD are some of the most honest prayers we can pray.  The words that tear out of us can be bitter, but the LORD’s answers from His heart of mercy, are often very sweet.  We certainly don’t deserve a single atom of His love, yet the LORD is willing to pour His mercy and lovingkindness, anyway. The Hebrew word for this kind of fathomless love and mercy is “hesed.” The LORD’s “hesed” is the reason He is so willing to move us out of the prisons in our minds to the wide-open spaces of His freedom.  

     The key to “hesed” is in God’s name.  When you and I see “LORD” in all capitals, we are seeing a picture of a God whose mercy is so great, whose love is so enormous, whose grace is so all-encompassing, that He keeps His covenant promise not to dump us in disgust and walk away when we stink up our lives and break His heart.  The LORD’s “hesed,” first unveiled to Moses in Exodus 36:4, cannot even be translated adequately into English. The words “mercy” “grace” and “lovingkindness” stab at defining the indefinable.

    The LORD is the ultimate keeper of promises.  He has promised liberty for us prisoners who are either trapped in the mess our sin has caused or struggling with circumstances that back us into dark, tight corners (Luke 4:18; Isaiah 57:15).  The LORD of “hesed” hears our groans, wanting to release us from the jaws of death (Psalm 102:20).  We have only to cry out our prayers, appealing to the LORD’s “hesed,” an ocean of love and mercy that fuels His promise never to walk away from us.  That is why Paul prayed in Ephesians 3, that we would finally “grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.”  The LORD’s “hesed” is so vast that only the most spacious place in all creation can hold what is in His heart.  Paul prayed that we would lay hold of that immense love so that we would not be afraid to pray bold prayers for the LORD’s fountains of mercy to flow in our lives.

    What is confining you? Depression? Sin? Relationship struggles? Lack of resources? A “not-enough” mindset?  Health challenges? Rejection? Betrayal?  Bitterness? Lack of knowledge?  Shame?  I am sure you can add to this list, for the forces that press us into our personal prison cells and compel us to live small lives are endless.  But like King David, we can lament before God and ask to be put in a spacious place because of His boundless “hesed.”  Shame may tell you that you are not worthy of mercy.  Guilt may try to silence your voice before you even try to pray.  Cry out anyway!  Ask anyway!   The “hesed” of God is absolutely unfailing!  That is why you read so many Psalms that cry out this affirmation with such joy.  People delivered from mental and emotional prison, cannot hold back their praises!  How can they?  They have been set free by a radical encounter with the superabundance of the LORD’s “hesed.” 

     Romans 8:2 in The Message Bible gives us a remarkable conclusion to this little blog.  Sit with this Scripture a while and give it a good chew.

Those who enter into Christ’s being-here-for-us
no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. 
A new power is in operation.
The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air,
freeing you from a fated lifetime
of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.

May the LORD’s unfailing “hesed” bring you to His spacious places of freedom and absolute delight in His presence.  Amen.