He Has Place My Feet in a Wide Place

You have not given me into the hands of the enemy but have set my feet in a spacious place. (Psalm 31:8)

 

Proverbs 4:26 tells us to ponder the path of our feet; then all our ways will be sure.  The word here also means to make level.  Psalm 119:45 tells us that if we seek His precepts, we will walk in a wide place.  

 

Other translations tell us that if we walk in freedom, this is equivalent to a wide place.   In other words, it is not a physical place but a spiritual freedom that opens the way before us versus making us feel tightly boxed in. The word rechab used in Psalm 119:45 is the same word that is used in Exodus that the Israelites would be brought into a good and spacious land.  A land free from bondage.

 

Very similar is the spacious or wide place spoken of in Psalm 31:8,  It is the word, merchab, whose root is rechab.  It means an extraordinary spacious place and figuratively means to be free from any distress or anxiety.   It is used in Psalm 118:5 and Psalm 18:19 as a place of being rescued and brought forth, as deliverance from something.

 

I remember years ago having tons of anxiety and distress.  I also had incapacitating depression.  My space was becoming smaller and smaller as phobias, fears, and depression limited me.  It was boxing me into hopelessness, thinking the only way out was suicide.

 

So what changed?  It was not my life that drastically changed in the form of a different job, different parents, new friends, or winning the lottery.  What changed was coming to know Christ and looking to Him.  As I did, he slowly set me free.  One thought after another, I came into more and more freedom and life.  

 

It was my thinking that changed.   From thinking everything was going to end in disaster, as I received God’s love, I began to trust more and more.  I trusted His love to sustain me and had a different perspective.  I stopped thinking I was just waiting for the hammer to fall and started, over time, anticipating God to make the way for me.  I anticipated His goodness instead.

 

Interesting that we are for my church this week moving into Galatians 6 and a teaching on sowing and reaping.   Could our decisions on sowing matter more than our circumstances and biological make-up in our mental health?

 

For my middle son who just graduated high school, I still remember the tremendous anxiety he had when he came to live with us many years ago.  Even crossing the street, he would grab my hand and ask, “Are you going to be okay?” It created tremendous stress for him when I walked, rode a bike, or crossed the street.  He was ridden with terrible anxiety.   And he had nightmares every night.

 

I am certain that his young situation had everything to do with this.  As some kids can get all the breaks, he got none of them.   He had everything going against him and his mom, dad, and then brother broke any ties and abandoned him. 

 

But, having experienced incapacitating anxiety myself in life, we talked about reading the Bible every day.   He started doing this and as he did, the nightmares stopped, and then the anxiety slowly disappeared.    Now, he is much more confident and sure.  He is living out his dream of going to college.   At the same time, like me, he still reads his Bible every day.  It has become a habit that changed his mental health.

 

I was at a funeral recently of a young lady, in her mid-forties, that died from fentanyl and left four children behind.  Two of them are still in their early teens.   She struggled with depression and used it occasionally as a way to self-medicate.  I kept asking God why and how this can happen.  

 

My boy's biological mom also struggled with bipolar depression and self-medication.  She had a difficult childhood and lacked a genuine loving mother herself as a good role model.  Her use as a way of self-medicating led her down a road of neglect that resulted in her giving up her children.

 

Looking at both their lives, it didn’t all happen with one choice.  It was a series of choices over time that resulted in more and more darkness, tighter places with a greater need for freedom, and the use of chemicals to try to create an imitation of freedom, self-medicating and trying to escape the condition of their lives.

 

So if tight places, with anxiety, depression, and despair, can be created by our choices over time that result in us being closed in, the opposite is true.   Sow to the wind, and you will ultimately reap a whirlwind—either way, good or bad.

 

Just as we can reap doom, we can reap joy and other fruits of the Spirit.   Our answer to having more joy in our lives may not all rest with a determination to rejoice.  It may not even fully rest with working to spend more time in His presence.  While this is good and will bear fruit, an overflowing joy may just come from a life of good choices over time.

 

The more we sow into our relationship with the Holy Spirit and walk the ways of the Lord’s commands, the more the fruit of the Spirit, including joy and peace, will grow in our lives.  We will also have more self-control to say yes to the right things and no to things that would cause us harm. Those who have, even more will be given, and He will have more than enough. 

 

Psalm 126:5 says, “He who goes out weeping, bearing a trail of seed, will surely return with shouts of joy, carrying sheaves of grain.”

 

In other words, those who repent of ways that have caused them difficulty in their lives and sow into different practices that will reap fruitfulness, will certainly harvest an abundance and be filled with joy.

 

What is difficult is that it is not always clear on the habits that keep us from reaping an abundance of joy.  We do not always see that what we are sowing into is bad for us as it has some good elements.  Phones, for example, can help us to access spiritual content, but at the same time, can be a distraction and time waster as we browse mindlessly or are distracted by content that comes across our screen.

 

In the same way, one way we can tell if we are sowing good seed or not is from the fruit that we bear. Jesus says in Matthew 7:16 that by the fruit, we will recognize the tree.  Is it thorny, harsh, or lacks good fruit? If it is, then it tells us that we need to change what we are sowing into.  

 

With myself, I love to fast as it makes me feel connected more with God.  But there are times that it just makes me thorny.  I become crabby and short.   Then I know that I am not sowing good seeds but sowing into my own works and self-effort that will lead to self-righteousness or feelings of failure. 

 

I have a tendency to be strong in walking in many habits, such as fasting and praying.  While this can be good, it can also bring me to this place of dry works that do not seem to bear fruit in my life.  It is important to make room for expression of faith over works.  It is important that it does not become about the practices but about the relationship.  We need to stay in a place of relationship and make room for the Holy Spirit.

 

We need to stay in a place of being led by His Spirit in all things at all times.  The more we sow to the Spirit, we will reap eternal life.  This eternal life is not a life when we die and go to heaven; this is Zoë life that comes and is sustained by God. It is a joy overflowing, filled with the Spirit, life of vitality that pulls from the Kingdom of God.

 

As noted in Galatians 6:7-8, it is the opposite of sowing to please the flesh, which reaps destruction.  Sowing to the flesh is cultivating sinful desires.  It is sowing to self, indulging in competition, envy, and discord, along with greater sins such as lust and sexual immorality.   These things do not only bring about destruction over time.

 

It may seem something as little as indulging in manipulating people and circumstances for creating discord, gossiping about others and wanting their ruin.   But it is a slippery slope of indulgence in sin that leads to greater bitterness and corruption of the heart and soul.

 

Coming back to my initial thoughts, here, destruction is the word phthora, and it is a decaying or decomposition.  Like an apple that rots over time, it may seem overly sweet, but there is a misery that comes with it.  It is unfruitful and lacks function.  It becomes ruined by ongoing sin.  This paints the picture of some of the mental health issues today.  People in this state can become overwhelmed with small difficulties, unproductive, and need constant care.  

 

Coming back to the funeral I went to of a friend who lost her daughter at a fairly young age,  I could see and feel the deep pain and grief of her parents.  But at the same time, there was this comfort flowing under the surface.  They had sown so much to the Spirit and were reaping His peace and comfort, and had underlying joy despite the incredible difficulty.   They had an eternal perspective.

 

Lord Jesus, we long to be more led by Your Spirit.  Please help us see where we are sowing to the flesh and reaping destruction.   Thank you where you bring us perspective.  Help us so that we may reap more eternal life.