A Spacious Place

He is wooing you from the jaws of distress to a spacious place free from restriction, to the comfort of your table laden with choice food.
Job 36:16

Have you ever been in a tight spot…a place of restriction and confinement? Perhaps circumstances have narrowed your world. Maybe the decisions ahead seem bridled and limited. Could it be that your heart is bound up in despair and hopelessness?

Five times in Scripture, we see that the Lord wants us to live in a spacious place...a place of liberty and welfare where we have room to thrive. In the passage above, the Lord Himself is wooing us, calling us, luring us from a harmful place to a place of rest, comfort, and peace.

In 2 Samuel 22:20, David sings, He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me. He echoes the same refrain in Psalm 18:19. There are times in my life when I need His rescue…times of discouragement, seasons of loneliness, periods of selfishness. Because He delights in me, he wants me to be in a healthy, wholesome place, living in freedom and joy.

Psalm 31:8 also speaks of God’s rescue: You have not given me into the hands of the enemy but have set my feet in a spacious place. This is a testimony to His goodness and protection on our behalf. It reflects his love for us, His desire for us to live free from bondage to the enemy.

My favorite reference to this concept is from Psalm 118:5: When hard pressed, I cried to the Lord; he brought me into a spacious place. There are times that I am squeezed and pressured and need room to breathe! Though he doesn’t always remove me from these circumstances, God’s presence is the air I need to inhale so that I can exhale the anxieties of this life.

You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand (Psalm 6:11).

Jill Hardin