Wide Open Spaces
Scripture Reading: Psalm 119:45
I shall walk in a wide place, for I have sought your precepts.
People mostly think of God’s law as a constraint upon their behavior and choices. They look at keeping the law as restrictive and confining. The truth is just the opposite. Freedom is found in living according to God’s precepts. A fish does not find freedom by choosing to leave the lake and live on the shore. It might be “free” from the constraints of the environment for which it was created, but that freedom brings death. Every creature is most free when it lives within the realm for which it was created and designed. The eagle is most free soaring in the sky and the buffalo when it roams the grassy prairie land. Buffalos weren’t made to fly and eagles weren’t made to roam the grasslands.
The Psalmist knew he was made by God to live in a certain way. He was made to live in a relationship with God as King. His truest and most free self was to be found by seeking and living by God’s precepts. He would “walk in a wide place” when he walked according to God’s word.
Sin, or living in contradiction and opposition to God’s word, is not the path to freedom. It is the road to serfdom and slavery. True freedom is discovered in knowing and living by the truth.