Running with an Enlarged Heart

Scripture Reading:Psalm 119:25-32

I run in the path of your commands, 

for you have broadened my understanding.

Psalm 119:32 

The psalmist has moved from clinging to the dust to running in freedom — from heaviness to holy joy. Once bound by sorrow and confusion, he now moves with purpose and vitality. God’s commandments, once perceived as confining, have become a clear, life-giving path. To “run” is to live eagerly and freely in the light of divine truth. When God broadens our understanding, we see His commands not as walls that restrain but as roads that guide. As Eugene Peterson paraphrases, “I run the course you lay out for me if you’ll just show me how.” The Word that once restrained now releases energy and direction; the soul learns to move with the rhythm of grace.

An enlarged heart is a heart expanded by love and insight. Spurgeon wrote, “Obedience is the road to liberty; the heart enlarged by grace runs swiftly in the way of God’s commands.” The psalmist’s understanding has been broadened — he now perceives that obedience is not bondage but freedom. J. B. Lightfoot beautifully captured this truth: “When love rules, law ceases to be a chain and becomes wings.” Grace widens our capacity for joy; the Spirit transforms duty into desire. To walk in God’s truth is to breathe in His love — and when love fills the heart, obedience becomes a delight that quickens our pace.

This movement from restraint to rejoicing is echoed in the song “It’s a Long Road to Freedom” by the Medical Mission Sisters, a hymn born in the 1960s amid longing for renewal and peace:

“It’s a long road to freedom, a winding steep and high,

But when you walk in love with the wind on your wing,

And cover the earth with the songs you sing,

The miles fly by.”

So it is with those who run in the path of God’s commands. The journey may be steep, but when love enlarges the heart and understanding widens the vision, obedience becomes song — and the miles of life’s pilgrimage fly by beneath the wings of grace.

Prayer:

Lord, broaden our understanding and enlarge our hearts by Your grace. Teach us to run freely in the path of Your commands, to find joy in obedience and music in the journey. Let love be the wind beneath our wings, that we may cover the earth with songs of Your praise. Amen.