How Is God’s Law Like Beautiful, Wide-Open Sky?
Many of my most vivid memories are of the open sky. Like how as a child on the swings, I’d lean back as far as my arms would allow. Tilting my head backwards so my hair nearly brushed the floor, I’d swing, watching the clouds and the world upside down.
Just this week, I took my kids to the park near our house. They played by the ocean, and my son explored rocks exposed by low tide. Water and sky before me, I breathed deeply.
Being in these open spaces is good for my heart. The tightness in my stomach eases a bit. The burden on my chest too. In the goodness of creation, God gives me a taste of the Spirit’s freedom. He leads my soul to a spacious place.
A Spacious Place
Creation’s spacious places are God’s grace to me because I tend to operate as if I’m walking on a tightrope. Though I know my soul is secure in an ultimate sense, it still feels as if I’m always just one slip away from a great fall. Psychologists call this tightrope feeling “doubts about actions,” and it’s a common symptom of perfectionism.
“Doubts about actions” is assessed in perfectionism studies with statements like: “I usually have doubts about the simple everyday things I do,” “It takes me a long time to do something ‘right,’” and “Even when I do something very carefully, I often feel that it is not quite right.”
For Christian perfectionists like me, that last statement might be reworded, “Even when I try to obey God very carefully, I often feel that it is not quite right.” We second-guess our “simple everyday” actions, afraid of inadvertently sinning. For some of us, these doubts escalate to the point of compulsive indecisiveness or a form of scrupulosity characterized as “religious OCD.”
If you are burdened by similar fears, then Jesus’s promise of rest is intended for you. Our good Shepherd leads us safely off our tightropes and sets our feet in spacious places.
In Psalm 18, David praises God, saying, “He brought me out into a spacious place. He rescued me because he delighted in me” (Ps. 18:19).
For David, these spacious places were literal—God repeatedly delivered him from enemies and out of hiding to open safety. But these physical experiences were also used by psalmists to describe an inner reality. Psalm 119:45 says, “I shall walk in a wide place, for I have sought your precepts.”
It may be hard to imagine, but God’s law isn’t meant to keep us on a never-ending tightrope walk. Through the law, God actually leads us to wide, open spaces of freedom and joy. Thus we turn now, perhaps counterintuitively, to consider how God’s commands might guide us to a spacious place.
No Hidden Expectations
How can understanding the law (or commands) of God bring freedom for the Christian perfectionist? First, simply consider that God speaks.
This is incredible to me. The gap between God’s thoughts and human comprehension is as great as the distance between the heavens and the earth (Isa. 55:9). Nevertheless, he has stooped down to speak in ways he knows we’ll understand, so we don’t have to be afraid of missing his voice.
God speaks through creation and his word. Through the world around us, God reveals his divinity (Ps. 19:1–6). Through his law, he revives our souls, makes us wise for salvation, and teaches us to fear him (vv. 7–9). And though Christians are no longer bound to the Old Testament ceremonial laws, which were fulfilled in Christ, nor to the civil laws, which only applied then to the nation of Israel, his commands still guide us today as we seek to love God and love neighbor (Matt. 22:37–40).
As someone who is afraid of making mistakes, I find the truth that God speaks is a great comfort. It means he doesn’t expect me to “just know” what is right or what he wants. Some of us know what it’s like to be in a relationship or a culture that seems to require something close to mind-reading, at least from our perspective. But God doesn’t hold his children to hidden expectations.
From the beginning, his spoken words to Adam and Eve set before them their purpose. He gave them clear instructions, spelling out the consequence for disobedience. Humanity was not meant to find our way through a game of trial-and-error, groping around in the darkness and guessing at how to live and how to please our Creator. God spoke.
Thus, the writer of Psalm 119 says, “I shall walk in a wide place, for I have sought your precepts.” God’s commands are our delight because they are our counselors (v. 24). They make us wise, teaching us to walk in the true, good way (vv. 98, 128). And when the road ahead of us is fraught with danger and we are afraid to walk lest we fall, his word is a lamp by our feet, revealing anything that might cause us to stumble (v. 105). God didn’t have to speak, but through his precious commands, he has spoken. And those who seek him need not fear missing his voice.
This article is an adapted extract from Peace over Perfection by Faith Chang and used with permission (The Good Book Company, 2024).