When the Spacious Place Becomes Us
Have you ever fled for refuge until you felt the physical release of open air and vast terrain with no trace of remaining threat in sight? Where your own smallness juxtaposed with the wide open space soothes the devastated and exhausted expanse within you?
It wasn’t until we were brought out that we knew we’d been delivered. It wasn’t until we crossed state lines and let our eyes take in the seeming boundlessness of Wyoming that we strangely felt God’s delight tending our wounds—and finally felt safe.
We weren’t fleeing a war-torn country but we did leave a faith community. We sold almost everything. We gave up almost everything—livelihood, community, neighborhood—we had invested in for years. We needed to heal from a prolonged and pernicious storm of religious abuse. For a while we believed we belonged in the congregation. We thought we could find (or at least cultivate) safe pasture. I hoped to flourish as a pastor among other pastors. In the end, it turned out to be a bewildering web of control, conformity, and diminishment in the name of ‘kingdom’ mission. We couldn’t stay once we realized it—and we (and others) met fierce resistance for addressing it.
Have you ever noticed that the desolation of an abusive system—workplace, family, church, etc.—often reflects the inward scarcity of one(s) most liable for shaping it? Out of the abundance of a leader’s heart, the organization “speaks.” Hospitality or pretense. Meekness or arrogance. Benevolence or violence.
If you’ve ever faced the rage of self-protecting authority in this kind of system, you understand how confined the spaces become in proximity to it. You know what it feels like to wither the longer you labor to stay, hoping it will change.
When we left, our adrenaline sustained us long enough to coordinate our departure from the “blast radius” of betrayal, rage, and heartache. In some ways we felt like we couldn’t get far enough away no matter how long we drove without looking in the rearview mirror.
Family provided us a place to land but it wasn’t until our eyes met the broadening western landscape ahead that we were prompted to breathe—and shed our first tears of gratitude and grief because there was finally air available.
The Gift of Spacious Places
In the Old Testament, spacious places are often associated with liberation from tyranny and suffering. The spacious place is juxtaposed by a hellscape where oppression has suffocated the land until God intervenes. The Israelites were reminded constantly, “…he brought you out with a strong hand and redeemed you from the place of slavery (Deut. 7:8).” In 2 Samuel, David rejoices when God delivers him from Saul and his mighty men. He exclaims, “He brought me out to a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me (22:20).” And again, “you make a spacious place beneath me for my steps, and my ankles do not give way (2 Sam. 22:37).” Elihu describes God’s deliverance and mercy to Job similarly: “Indeed, he lured you from the jaws of distress to a spacious and unconfined place. Your table was spread with choice food (Job 36:16).”
Spacious places—in the aftermath of affliction—provide safety, nourishment, and abundant terrain for healing. They are triage-lands in the wake of trauma that offer stabilizing oxygen for both body and soul. They remind God’s people of their true and deepest identity which no amount of weariness from pain can steal: you belong to the Lord your God and you can rest secure in His presence. There is space for you.
Long ago it was God who patented the act of loving rescue. He has always been about snatching his beloved out from the teeth of tyranny. Out of Egypt. Out of the desert. Out of exile. Out of sanctuaries when necessary. Out of darkness and into the kingdom of his beloved Son. Whenever he leads us out of the mire, he leads us into spaciousness. God’s blessing and promises have often featured the hope and spiritual imagination of fertile lands. His commitment to shepherd and form those he loves unto death means he tends patiently to the holy, weathered, and wounded topography of our stories.
The Space Within Us
I have many shepherds in my life who have reflected the invitational welcome and embrace of God in both their weeping and rejoicing with me. I have also known men who knew how to recline with power but not how to sit with pain—especially the pain they caused. As a result, the space inhabited by their presence emanated a confined and conceited superiority.
Every time I have received God’s invitation to repentance, he mercifully brought me out from the tyranny of my defense and into softened space where my heart expanded. The more I have been willing to enter the pain of my wife’s experience with chronic illness, the more receptive I have become to all pain, which has made me a better friend, chaplain, and pastor. As I am formed by God’s presence tenderly shepherding my life, I endeavor to embody the presence of someone God can entrust others’ stories to whenever they are ‘brought out’.
Spacious places contain healing properties not just for their safety, but for their beauty. In healing from the abuse of religious power, my wife and I have continually retreated to open air and wide vistas to find equilibrium. We have the luxury of Rocky Mountains within short distance, but often a simple walk around the neighborhood or five minute drive to catch a sunset is enough to let beauty “speak” to our losses and longings.
The landscapes (or lack thereof) around us can mirror our Wild Land Within. They can welcome our hope or reinforce our sense of lack. As it turns out, our presence in relationship to others does the same. Out of our own inward abundance, we can make space to welcome others. Or, if malformed, we can shepherd our own empires out of fear that we will wither if we allow others the space to flourish apart from our control.
When Jesus invites us to come to him ‘weary and burdened’ for rest (Mt. 11:28), he is offering his very presence as a spacious place. When he tells us his yoke is easy and his burden is light (Mt. 11:30), he is describing the terrain of his heart as a vast interior landscape with endless acreage to flourish under his care. When he describes his disposition toward us as gentle and humble (Mt. 11:29), he is assuring us his inward character can be trusted.
Not only is there safety and refuge in the presence of our God; there is promise. The longer we abide with him in weakness, the more our presence gathers others to the land of the living.
