The God Trap
You have enclosed me behind and before, and laid Your hand upon me. Psalm 139:5 NASB
Behind and before– Do you want to be free? Free to determine your own way? Free from the expectations of others? Free to explore who you really are? Free to choose God? Then get ready to be constrained! Human freedom is not the clear path we expect. Human freedom necessarily entails anxiety—and passion—and spontaneity—and structure—and fear—and hope. There is no freedom without fences. The “back and forth” mixture of human emotion is the twin sister of freedom. And since there can be no knowledge without emotion (cf. Arnold Bennett), all human freedom is found within the dialectic of the emotional spectrum.
“But this dialectical mode of learning has the very texture of human freedom. ‘You hedge me before and behind; You lay Your hand upon me’ (Psalms 139:5). God’s hand laid on man in creation set him apart from all other creatures, according to Rashi (1:27); they were made ‘by His word,’ determined, made precisely according to His will, while man was formed out of the symbolic freedom of the unmediated creative process. Rashi quotes this verse from Psalms, in his commentary on the creation of man, to sharpen the contrast between the human and the nonhuman, between freedom and determination. The first part of the verse . . . evokes the peculiar process by which human beings are created. Aḥor and kedem (‘Behind and before’): between delay, belatedness, anxiety, and structure, on the one hand, and spontaneity, courage, and passionate encounter, on the other, the human being is besieged, challenged, pressed by God’s hand. The image conveys all the tension of a condition both constrained and—strangely—free.”[1]
David understood this. God put fences behind him. There was no retreat to the “good ol’ days.” That path was closed. But there were also fences before him. Not all choices are possible. Not all options work. The path forward is constrained by the hedges along the way.
If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow, don’t be alarmed now
It’s just a spring clean for the May queen
Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run
There’s still time to change the road you’re on[2]
Those of us who have suffered prolonged emotional distress often wish to live free from residual trauma. We think life without borders is the answer. We want to erase the past and treat the future as a blank canvas. But that’s fantasy. We are the product of our past, and the past we inherited from those before us. This is our identity. What we do with it is, in some respects, up to us, but we can never return to the blank slate, the innocent Garden. And it seems as if this is the true intention of an unfinished world. We are always in-between, fenced behind and before. Godmade it that way.
If you are wishing for nirvana or some form of escape from tension and trauma, then you better get into the movies. That’s where fantasies are resolved. But life is quite different. It’s messy—and there doesn’t seem to be any cleanup crew coming to the rescue.
Maybe that’s why we wait and hope for the Messiah.
Topical Index: aḥor and kedem, behind and before, life, escape, freedom, Psalm 139:5
[1]Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, The Beginning of Desire: Reflections on Genesis, p. 242.
This sounds like a repeat, but very necessary! True freedom is that of a servant , Bond servant, no expectations, just what the master ordered. It’s out of love for the one you serve. To do only his will. He will be our only focus. How will we know what he wants? To know his word is to know him.
Thank you Skip and Friends for helping us know him, and what he wants. Shalom
I’ve come to know feelings as indicators and like the weather they put me “in the know”. I found embracing the truths they send to be a far cry better than attempting to escape, ignore, or bury them. As they say feelings buried alive don’t die! What I choose to do with them is to acknowledge that what I feel is REAL but not necessarily based in truth. I was part of a seminar recently where the participants were told to write words on a piece of paper mostly with pencil and a few words in pen. They were then told to erase what was on the paper. Of course they could not erase the pen ink and even the pencil left smudges. The point is, the canvas wasn’t blank! You can write on top of it but what was there before does not cease to exist.
Good morning. That’s an interesting word “constrained”. Worth time contemplating the whole idea of the love of God constraining us. It reminds me of an old old song we used to sing, which sort of contains the essence of the word. “ he doesn’t compel us to go, he just makes us willing to go”. Interesting thought when you think about it, being in relationship with our walk with God. I think this constraining is also tied in with God‘s discipline in our lives. The sense of being molded by the Potter who knows the design he has in mind. We have this treasure in earthen clay pots. The Potter has the right to make and use the vessels as he chooses fit. We don’t like that, we resist him and then he might have to constrain us….. isn’t that the part where He is God and we are not ?!?
You also said, “those of us who have suffered prolonged emotional disaster often wish to live free from the residual trauma…. we want to erase the past and treat the future as a blank canvas ….. we are the product of our past and the past we inherited from those before us. This is our identity”. Sounds pretty morose! I thought the Bible said that if any man be in Christ he is a new creation, the old is gone, the new has come?! I have struggled with this verse because the reality of my struggles sometimes laughs in the face of God’s declarations. Also being taught, “God said it, I believe it, that settles it“. Nice easy answer. As I go along in this journey out, I have to question so much of what I have been taught or handed. Very dualistic teaching.
And yet we cling to it because it gives us some type of supposed security. Christians like their boxes! I end up with the verse that says “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling“.
Your statement is sort of contrary to the teaching that says that we are not defined by our history, our identity is in Christ!
Last thought. Two words that have typically been seen as negative. . The word, “constrain” and also the word “provoke”. It’s good to see these two words in a different light.
Good delineation, Larry! Good questions, too. Deut. 28 tells us that we were created to be the “head, and not the tail”, and Joel tells us that the “years the locusts have eaten” will be restored/redeemed. This is not wiping the past: this is putting it in its place as the ‘tail’, or, a reaction to choice, instead of as the ‘head’, or, determiner of choice. The past no longer slings us around. Not only that, those wasted years are mysteriously restored, or made to serve righteousness. “All things work” when they are to the “glory of God”; even past things. Battles are only shameful if they are lost: gory details only make a more powerful statement and a better story if the battle was won!
Laurita, i’m glad I checked back to yesterday‘s word. Thank you so much for those amazingly insightful, instructive and helpful words. Yay for you, Yay for God !
I get to benefit from the fruit of your experience! What a gift! Have been thinking much lately about the “head and not the tail“. God is turning my life around little by little ! Thanks again.
Most of us get pushed and shoved into the mind of Christ.
A glide path does not seem to exist, yet a clear rescue is
fully underway. We have a part to play. “continue to work out
your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works
in you to will and to act according to His good purpose.”
How amazing it is to know that He works in us (behind and before)
to move us forward as we lovingly follow His commands, each of us
on our own unique path.
He leads us beside quiet waters as we are restored walking through
the valley of the shadow of death, right up to the sumptuous table He
has prepared for us to join Him. And there He shares with us “the mystery
of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”
Glad to be checking in after a busy few weeks. Being constrained is the reality of my choice for discipline and growth in truth. I have been blessed to be free to follow the Spirit of Truth or to choose my own selfish, self serving, self actuated way.
I frequently consider the prophetic words of Moses after the delivery of Torah “Today I set before you life or death, blessing or the curse…Choose LIFE”.
This morning I was in prayer and meditation. I saw in my spirit Yeshua, sitting quietly graciously beside me; waiting… I sensed his incredible patience and kindness, his amazing grace to allow me freedom to choose. Yeshua is the personification of grace in absolute truth = REALITY. My favorite theologian Robert Zimmerman AKA Bob Dylan sings prophetically on his album “Love and Theft” in the song “making my last go round”; “I will baptize you with fire so you can sin no more, I’ll establish my rule through civil war”
All these thoughts, and today’s word again remind me that I must choose life to find reality. That is the amzing freedom given us by our creator. I must choose between whom I will serve the Yetzer Hara or the Yetzer Hatov…It’s my choice and that choice leads to life or death blessings or the curse, truth or lies, illusions or reality; freedom or bondage. It’s that simple and that hard….Shalom Torah Fans!!!
Excellent, excellent word Mark! Really gave me some more pieces to get a better picture and understanding. About seven years ago I was hauled off in the ambulance to Harborview hospital here in Seattle. I was as close to death as possible. They had to do emergency open heart surgery or I would’ve died. I had gotten bacterial infection while getting my teeth cleaned at the dentist it had gone into my blood and ate up a big piece of my mitral valve. While I was laying in the hospital bed between life and death I had a bunch of people praying over me “choose life“. I, of course, was totally unaware of this until I was told about it later. I know that this is different then the life we are called to each day of our lives but it still is significant. Jesus came to give us life and that more abundantly. It’s interesting and amazing how we so easily turn to substitutes that promise life but don’t bring life. Except a corn of wheat falls into the ground and dies,it abides alone, but if it dies it bears much fruit. Life through death, no wonder we resist ! So every day we choose life we are consenting to death of some sort. Paints a little different picture…..
Just curious…..How do you know that that is what caused the damage?
I think you were asking me how did they determine that it was bacterial infection from the dentist/hygienist? I guess it’s the only thing the doctors could related to, because it happened within a few months of having my teeth cleaned. Having been diagnosed as a child with a heart murmur, I was always supposed to take antibiotics prior to getting my teeth cleaned or any dental work. I didn’t know that at the time, now I do …. hope that answers that question.
I read a little about ‘endocarditis’. Was that your condition? Mentioned rheumatic fever. Then mentioned the mitral valve. Said damage could show up 10 to 30 years after the initial infection. Have you ever had it? The immune system is , of course, important. How’s yours? I thought of fluoride. A poison. Dentists will tell you not to use toothpaste if you get a tooth pulled. One very strange comment on one site: Rates of endocarditis are increasing due to advancements in medical care. I am very interested in health related subjects and in natural treatments! Doctors aren’t interested in natural treatments. Big Pharma is in control. Poison like chemotherapy, fluoride and vaccines etc only weaken the immune system.
No to the rheumatic fever.
For some reason they say that a heart murmur makes the heart more of susceptible to infection, I guess. The surgeon said that he had never seen so much bacteria. I was really sick, really sick for a few months and felt like I was dying and as it turns out I was! I had septicemia and they said I had three systems failure shut down. I was in the hospital for a month and it took me almost a year or more to recover so I could go back to work.
And all because of a dental cleaning. What an experience!
Wow, Larry! Glad you made it through that! Thanks for sharing it.
We must put to death our unbelief and our foolish selfish-ambition and arrogant pride. No amount of cleverness on our part will give us true and lasting escape from our troubles. Unless it is G0D who makes the way, scheming and running from our situations is a deceptive fantasy, as it is actually only running from God. But there is no running from God! Sooner or later, He will hem us in yet again and again and again until we learn the lessons He is intent upon teaching us, for our own good. The only way to true freedom is the way of faith and trust in Him, surrender, perseverance, and obedience THROUGH our troubles.
We are all tempted to quit, to try to find our own way of escape and run from our situations, but instead, we must run TO God IN our situations, submit to and cooperate with HIM in HIS ways, until HE leads us out of or changes our situations. This is the only way to become more than over-comers. The only way is THROUGH MESSIAH who loves us so!
Messiah didn’t run. He trusted in the Father and he surrendered and he persevered. We cannot truly save ourselves by going our own way. Salvation belongs to our God and to the Lamb!
“After these things I looked, and behold, a vast multitude that no one could count—from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues—was standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands and crying out with a loud voice, saying, “SALVATION belongs to OUR GOD, who sits on the throne, AND TO THE LAMB!”
[Rev 7:9-10]
The opening paragraphs of your comment are perfect descriptions of Isaac’s trauma, as I revealed in my book, Crossing. The whole story from Abraham to Joseph is about trauma resolution, and as you have pointed out, one must go INTO it in order to resolve it, precisely what our defensive mechanisms (verbal and emotional) tell us NOT to do. Thanks for this.
We tend to want to think of freedom from prolonged emotional distress as the relief from negative emotions. I know I have felt this way. Weary. I can best describe the toll of prolonged emotional distress as laboring (and with my 9 week old son on my hip I can assure you I remember the 72 hour labor process vividly!). I remember saying to my husband that it was not the pain of the contractions that I found tough to cope with, it was the prolonged three days of labor contractions that I had hard time coping with. It is why we prefer the Band-Aid to be ripped off quickly. It is why we pray for short labors during childbirth. We understand we will have to face great pain, we just wish it didn’t have to last very long. The longer the pain progresses, the more weary we become.
Somehow we picked up along the way that it is not prudent for us to express our weariness and pain to God with any sort of intimacy. David understood this also. David was an emotional man. He lamented, he praised, he sang, he danced, he fought. His psalms are intimate. They prick tears in our eyes because they stir up real emotions in us. We have found ourselves asking his same questions. We have found ourselves also feeling like we are left standing at the altar with a past filled with trauma and an uncertain future. We are taught to praise God and not express the aspects of our lives that we can’t quite resolve if God is all good all the time. I don’t believe God commands us to face our suffering unflinchingly, though. God made us emotional beings. He understands our pain.
Maybe the answer is not an escape from the emotions of our trauma. Maybe the inability to escape breeds a yearning for the Messiah that we need. Maybe when I am faced with emotions surrounding trauma that I can’t quite reconcile by repeating the phrase, “God is good all the time.” I can express to God my real pain, because there is no way out of it, only through it.
Thank you for your revealing comment. I agree. There is a lot more to discover in the area of emotional experience with God.
And why is it that this song clicked into my brain when that riff was done playing there…
Forget your lust, for the rich man’s gold
All that you need is in your soul
And you can do this Oh baby if you try
All that I want for you my son is to be satisfied
And be a simple kind of man
Oh be something you love and understand
Baby be a simple kind of man
Oh won’t you do this for me son if you can?
“Simple Man” -Lynyrd Skynyrd