God stood me up on a wide-open field (a spacious place; God rescued me because he delighted in me.) I stood there saved—surprised to be loved.

Psalm 18:19 MSG (NIV)   

There are two spacious places in the world where I have been transfixed in delight, awe and silent gratitude. They were wide-open spaces that had no visible end, offering an unbounded invitation to wonder and wander freely in beauty.

The first was in East Africa. After years of studying tribal groups, I had dreamed of meeting the Acholi people of northern Uganda, known for their vibrant dancing even as they have been marginalized by a terrorizing conflict.  On a trip to Kampala working in a refugee youth program, my husband and I discovered that the director was Acholi. We had the amazing opportunity to go with her family to their ancestral village.  We were surprised with wonder when the entire village marched us to the center of their community and welcomed us with traditional dance.  As night began to fall, the lightning from a distant thunderstorm lit up the sky. You could see it miles away as the expansive grasslands of Acholi land seemed endless.  I could hear the deep longing words of actor Meryl Streep as she said the opening lines of the Karen Blixen memoir, Out of Africa: “I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills.”  We slept under the stars mesmerized by the beauty of the wide-open plains of Africa.

The second place is back in my home state of Texas, akin in many ways to Africa in its vast and changing topography.  I grew up in many other places, but home is Austin in the center of what is called the “hill country.”  For a decade, my work took me to West Texas, a foreign place to me both culturally and geographically.  In time, I grew to appreciate the flat land of blowing tumbleweeds and white cotton fields that made the long drive home seem to take forever with the horizon stretching on and on.  From San Angelo on Highway 208 headed north to Lubbock it takes a solid hour on a very straight two-lane road with absolutely nothing on each side except spaciousness.  The first time I discovered this route, I took advantage of driving 100 mph.  Then on subsequent trips, I began to notice the quiet, the wonder, the awe of being alive and alone in such a magnitude of boundless beauty.

With the Scriptures that have been my contemplative companions, I have wondered about the path, the narrow road, the way of life in what seems to be about a vast and mysterious Kingdom of God. That narrow highway through the spaciousness of West Texas land reminds me of several passages:

Psalm 23:3 “He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.”  John Mark Comer in Practicing the Way says the path is the journey, the way of living for a follower of the way of Jesus. And Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount directs us to enter the kingdom of God by the narrow gate explaining that the easy, broad road leads to destruction and the difficult, narrow way leads to life. (Matthew 7:14, NRSVUE, NIV)

Paul tells us in Romans 5-6 that we receive the abundance of grace, eternal life, and the free gift of righteous reign in the kingdom through the sacrificial death of the one man Jesus Christ who conquered sin and death through the resurrection.  The MSG version of Romans 5:17 describes our salvation as “grasping the wildly extravagant life-gift,” that the one man Jesus Christ provides.

The idea of the walking through the narrow gate that only Jesus Christ has opened and then walking the way he modeled and taught may feel like a tight squeeze or a confining lifestyle to many, yet it is the way God offered as the prophet Isaiah said:

Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him (the Servant Jesus Christ), he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt…the righteous one, my servant will make many to be accounted righteous. Isaiah 53:10

Like the small Texas highway offering an entry into spacious wonder, entering the narrow gate to follow Jesus is paradoxically an entry way into a spacious, wide open way of life with the God who loves and saves us:

God stood me up on a wide-open field (a spacious place; He rescued me because he delighted in me.) I stood there saved—surprised to be loved. Psalm 18:19 MSG (NIV)           

By entering through faith into what God has always wanted to do for us—set us right with him, make us fit for him—we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus. And that’s not all: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand—out in the wide-open spaces of God’s grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise.  Romans 5:1-2 MSG

Wow and WOW.  Exactly where I want to stand…in the WIDE OPEN SPACES of God’s grace and glory.  The Greek word “glory” in this verse signifies the radiant majesty of God and when God is glorified it is a display of God’s beauty (seen in Hebrew word for glory in Isaiah 49:3; 61:3).  We stand in the spaciousness of God’s BEAUTY when we enter through the narrow gate of faith in our Master Jesus. Then the doors are thrown open and we can only stand in Awe, silent or shouting, whichever comes.

REFLECT. Jesus said “I am the WAY, the Truth, and the Life.” We tend to focus on truth and teaching more than the Way of living. John Mark Comer says followers of the WAY: BE with Jesus. BECOME like Jesus, and Do as Jesus did. Imagine yourself being with Jesus, walking through the gate, walking along the way, coming to a spacious place of beauty.

PRAY. Jesus, I choose again the path of an apprentice. Teach me to love you with all my mind, all my heart, all my body, and all my strength. Help me to imitate and include you as I plan my diary, write my to-do list, waste time on my phone, even as I walk through my neighbourhood. Shape my life around prayer, mission and your “unforced rhythms of grace”  (Matthew 11:29, MSG).

PRACTICE. Take a walk or a trip to a wide-open space and read Psalm 18 (MSG) Make it your own as you reflect and pray. Be silent, shout or sing as you respond to the Beauty of God.

18 ^1-2 I love you, God—
    you make me strong.
God is bedrock under my feet,
    the castle in which I live,
    my rescuing knight.
My God—the high crag
    where I run for dear life,
    hiding behind the boulders,
    safe in the granite hideout.

³ I sing to God, the Praise-Lofty,
    and find myself safe and saved.

^4-5 The hangman’s noose was tight at my throat;
    devil waters rushed over me.
Hell’s ropes cinched me tight;
    death traps barred every exit.

⁶ A hostile world! I call to God,
    I cry to God to help me.
From his palace he hears my call;
    my cry brings me right into his presence—
    a private audience!

^7-15 Earth wobbles and lurches;
    huge mountains shake like leaves,
Quake like aspen leaves
    because of his rage.
His nostrils flare, bellowing smoke;
    his mouth spits fire.
Tongues of fire dart in and out;
    he lowers the sky.
He steps down;
    under his feet an abyss opens up.
He’s riding a winged creature,
    swift on wind-wings.
Now he’s wrapped himself
    in a trenchcoat of black-cloud darkness.
But his cloud-brightness bursts through,
    spraying hailstones and fireballs.
Then God thundered out of heaven;
    the High God gave a great shout,
    spraying hailstones and fireballs.
God shoots his arrows—pandemonium!
    He hurls his lightnings—a rout!
The secret sources of ocean are exposed,
    the hidden depths of earth lie uncovered
The moment you roar in protest,
    let loose your hurricane anger.

^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!

^20-24 God made my life complete
    when I placed all the pieces before him.
When I got my act together,
    he gave me a fresh start.
Now I’m alert to God’s ways;
    I don’t take God for granted.
Every day I review the ways he works;
    I try not to miss a trick.
I feel put back together,
    and I’m watching my step.
God rewrote the text of my life
    when I opened the book of my heart to his eyes.