Ps.4:1 – TPT – God, you are my righteousness, my champion defender.
Answer me when I cry for help!
Whenever I was in distress, you enlarged me.
I’m being squeezed again—I need your kindness right away!
Grant me your grace, hear my prayer, and set me free!
I love the way the Lord uses every circumstance we encounter to work in our lives. I often talk about the job I had during my Bible School days pushing chicken manure. I will spare you the details, all I can say it was much worse than you can imagine. I can remember being hot, stinky, and cooped up under the chicken pens all day for months. There were not many job opportunities near Kerman, California and I had a new wife and our firstborn son to provide for. Quitting wasn’t an option so I just soldiered on day after day. This verse describes what was happening in my life. I was in distress and being squeezed, this really caused me to lean on the Lord everyday. I can say He met me again and again and I came out of those eleven months in a different place. I would have to say that the Lord enlarged me. Here is how Spurgeon describes this verse.
“Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress.” A figure taken from an army enclosed in a defile (a narrow gorge or passage), and hardly pressed by the surrounding enemy. God hath dashed down the rocks and given me room; he hath broken the barriers and set me in a large place. Or, we may understand it thus:— “God hath enlarged my heart with joy and comfort, when I was like a man imprisoned by grief and sorrow.” God is a never-failing comforter.”
Maybe you are not a chicken mess pusher like me but I am certain that you have had some messy seasons for yourself. Maybe you are right in the middle of the mess right now. What is the solution? David described it as a cry for help. I cried to the Lord more than once in those days. Only the Lord and the chickens heard my cry. Go ahead and try it, let out a cry to the Lord. You can even complain to Him if you need to (I did my share of that over the years). I am certain the Lord will respond, before you know it you will be on the other side of the mess and will realize that you too have been enlarged.