OPINION —
As sudden as a lightning strike, a severe pain in my lower abdomen got my complete attention. One minute I was watching a football game; the next I was focused entirely on the sudden pain in my stomach. Assuming it would soon pass, I sat very still. The pain, however, remained. My prayers for relief went unanswered. I sat in my recliner past midnight, and finally, exhausted, I went to bed, still hurting.
The next day my wise doctor sent me to the hospital where, for five days, antibiotics came to my rescue. My doctor released me with this wise counsel: stick to a bland diet for a month. That’s not punishment because I love applesauce, eggs and bananas.
During my morning devotional time, I came across a verse in the Psalms that reminded me of my pain: “When hard pressed, I cried to the Lord; he brought me into a spacious place” (118:5). I identified with David. I was “hard pressed” by my pain. I had “cried to the Lord” for help. But, frankly, I was puzzled by the phrase, “a spacious place.” I would not describe relief from pain “a spacious place.”
As I searched for what David meant by the phrase, I discovered that “spacious place” is the English translation of the Hebrew word, merchab. It means a broad or roomy place, an expansive physical space or figuratively, “a state of liberty and freedom from stress.” It means “to breathe freely, to revive, to have ample room or to be refreshed.” Some translations call it “a place of abundance.”
Immediately I thought that the opposite of a spacious place is “a hard place,” a place where one is a captive of pain, a place of suffering where one does indeed cry to the Lord for “freedom from stress.” Suddenly I understood why David rejoiced when the Lord “brought him into a spacious place.” Several translations expanded my understanding of Psalm 118:5:
Out of my distress I called on the Lord; the Lord answered me and set me free. (ESV)
In my distress I prayed to the Lord, and he answered me and rescued me. (Living Bible)
Pushed to the wall, I called to God; from the wide open spaces, he answered. (The Message)
I was delighted to learn that David used the phrase several times, and these verses danced in my mind with new meaning:
Psalm 31:7-8 – I will be glad and rejoice in your love, for you saw my affliction and knew the anguish of my soul. You have not handed me over to the enemy but have set my feet in a spacious place. (NIV)
Psalm 18:16-19 – But me he caught — reached all the way from sky to sea; he pulled me out of that ocean of hate, that enemy chaos, the void in which I was drowning. They hit me when I was down, but God stuck by me. He stood me up on a wide-open field; I stood there saved — surprised to be loved. (The Message)
The phrase, “a spacious place,” occurs also in 2 Samuel 22:20 – He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me; and in Job 36:16 – 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.
Today I am praising God for the reassurance that whenever I am hard pressed, when I am in a hard place, beset by stress and suffering, I can cry out to my heavenly Father, asking him to have mercy on me and bring me into a spacious place. He has done it many times, and I am confident he will do it again. Glory!
