A Broad Spacious Place

Psalm 18

     I am going to take a break from the full and empty series.  I have something else on my mind today.  It probably stems from the mini mission trip to the prison I made last week.  A few of us from church went and did a chapel service for the inmates at Cummings prison in Southern Arkansas.  

     I have to admit I was hesitant at first to participate in this outing.  The thought of clanking doors locking behind me played with my tendency to feel a little claustrophobic at times.  I could picture myself in a panic not able to breathe making quite the fool of myself.  

    I'm not sure why I changed my mind.  Maybe the good Lord had a hand in that and I am quite sure He gave me added strength and stability to meet the challenge.

    While I was there I thought about the hurdles these men would face in putting their lives back in order.  Having a record tagging along with you can't be easy. I wondered about the shame factor. I wondered how hard it would be to get past the stigma of having been a prisoner.

      There are many things in life that can lock us into a flawed mental picture of ourselves.  Messing up, breaking laws, failing to live up to our own expectations, or someone else's expectations of us. There is an endless list of circumstances that can narrow our own view of ourselves.

    Having parents that leave us, or parents that can never be pleased no matter how hard we try. Having a spouse who walks out.  Having a child that wanders way off the beaten trail.  Making bad choices that land us in jail or rehab.  All these things have the power to shrink how we see ourselves into a person of that one circumstance.  I am a failure in this area thus I am a failure.  This person does not accept me probably no one will accept me, I'm unacceptable.  My father left me maybe everyone will leave me.  I'm not worth hanging with.

   Why have I titled this little talk Psalm 18?  Because it is filled with good stuff to counteract narrow vision.  I was doing some major struggling with father/daughter stuff and found much help and strength in this Psalm.

   I love, love, love this song written by David.  David had struggles and battles, failures and regrets, but one thing about David he was real before his God. He did not let his failures, his sin, or other people's view of him steal away his relationship with almighty God, or limit what God had planned for his life.
     God gives us our value.  In the first three verses David identifies his God as: my strength, my rock, my fortress, my deliverer, my shield, horn of my salvation, and my stronghold.  God was real and personal to David and David knew that He is worthy to be praised.  After the words detailing the role God played in his life, David goes on to document all the ways that God had been faithful.   Right about in the middle of all this recounting, praise and acknowledgement of God's wonderfulness is a rich nugget.

   Verse 19 says: He also brought me out into a broad place; He delivered me because He delighted in me.

    This may have been a military situation for David, I'm not sure what the broad place represented in Davids life, but I could tell that a broad place is a good place.

     I had put myself into a very small place.  It was a place controlled by how one person treated me. This wonderful little verse reminded me that's not all there is to me.  In reality how God sees me is the real thing.  When I became a child of God, He brought me out into a broad place.  I'm not just a "cast aside" daughter.  I'm a wife, a mother, a grandmother.  My broad place began to get broader and broader. I'm a sister, an aunt, a friend, a Sunday school teacher. The paralyzing emphasis I had been putting on one painful area of my life started to shrink. 

  With the wonderful reminder that God delights in me it became easier to put things into perspective.  The sting of rejection, the shame of mistakes, the weight of regret can cause us to not be able to see past those circumstances.  God delights in you and He has a future and a broad place for you.  Blessings.