1:26 min read |

Occasionally I have moments of claustrophobia. If you’ve never experienced the feeling, it’s not pleasant. It feels like everything is closing in around you, slowly suffocating you. Panic is the only word that comes close to describing these moments.

Claustrophobia is usually triggered when a person finds themselves in a small, confined space. I’m not sure what happens psychologically and physiologically in these situations, but when the sensation starts, the only thing you want is out!

As surely as there is physical claustrophobia, there’s a spiritual counterpart. There are times when it seems that life has us in a tight, confined space. The panic rises and the urge to escape intensifies.

The psalmist David understood this feeling, and how to deal with it. Look at his prayer in Psalm 18:5 (NIV) “When hard pressed, I cried to the Lord; He brought me into a spacious place.”

The phrase “hard pressed” refers to a narrow, confining, restricted place. This is where David found himself, spiritually and emotionally. In his panic and pain he “cried to the Lord.” What did God do? David tells us; “He brought me into a spacious place.”

“Spacious” obviously refers to a large, unconfined, expanded, open and free space. It was exactly what a spiritual claustrophobic needed!

Are you feeling some spiritual claustrophobia? Is life closing in on you? Cry out to God. What He did for David, He’ll do for you!

Pastor Dale

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