I called to Adonai in my distress; the Lord answered me and put me in a spacious place. —Psalm 118:5
Every time I stumble on a verse like this, something deep in me stirs. I ache for my Father to scoop me up and set me down in that wide, open space. Most days I feel anything but spacious — the weight of parenting, the push of work, the swirl of responsibilities and fears pressing in from every side.
In the spacious place there is…
It feels like the opposite of the tight, constricting version of religion we’re served so often. Could it be that God’s country is actually spacious and vast? And that we’re called to live there?
David says the Lord is his Good Shepherd — the one who leads him to green pastures and still waters. Sabbath, too, is an invitation into that kind of space. A call to create and guard room enough for soul and body to rest.
In the spacious place, I can uncurl. I can expand.
In 2 Samuel 22, David thanks God for pulling him from deep waters — the crushing pressure — and bringing him out into a spacious place. The Hebrew word merchav carries this sense of broadness, openness, freedom. Sometimes it’s rescue from danger. Sometimes rest after wandering. Sometimes simply God’s delight in opening space for His people. Always it’s freedom from distress and anxiety.
So how do I live here? I think it begins with believing it’s possible. Practicing Sabbath. Receiving His daily invitations — step under the waterfall of His love, slow down, take delight.
Where does spaciousness meet you today? In what part of your soul do you ache to breathe, to stretch wide — but instead feel only tightness and constriction?
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Father,
I believe You are the One who brings me out into wide-open places. When I am pressed on every side, You rescue me. When I am restless, You lead me beside still waters.
Help me believe You want me to live spaciously — to unclench, uncurl, expand. To slow, to rest, to delight.
Help me remember the spacious place when my body rushes into fight-or-flight. Anchor me in Your promises. Calm my nervous system.
And help me lead my children as You lead me — in gentleness, toward green pastures that are safe and wide.
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Added December 7, 2025 4:09 PM (EST):
To live un-hunched, chest open to the world, expanded, also requires this:
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us… — Hebrews 12:1
Sin is the ultimate constricting pressure. The thing that crushes us until we look nothing like the heart-out, space-taking-up Kingdom love-warrior we were made to be.
But He has rescued us from this crushing pressure too! We just have to follow Him out of the tomb, every day. We follow Him to the spacious place, unburdened.