We are too easily flooded. The nature of the unredeemed life, and the nature of the addict’s mind, is one of saturation. We are saturated by our impulses, flooded by our emotions, and drowning in the immediate urgency of the “now.” On Day 1, we admitted the chaos. On Day 2, we accepted the Light. But Light alone is not enough if we are still underwater, trapped in the relentless tide of our desires and distractions.

God, in His sovereign wisdom, introduces the Expanse. The Hebrew word is Raqia—something hammered out, solid, a firmament. In this divine act, God inserts a holy distance between the waters that are “below” (the earthly, the temporal, the churning confusion of our biology and psychology) and the waters that are “above” (the heavenly, the eternal, the spiritual). This separation serves as a protective barrier, allowing us to find balance amid the chaos that threatens to overwhelm our lives.

Without this firmament, there is no atmosphere for the soul to breathe. A Christian without a “firmament” is a Christian who mixes the holy with the profane, thinking that their emotional whims are the voice of God. In such confusion, we risk being swallowed by the very currents we seek to escape. We must allow God to hammer out this space in us. It is the discipline of separation—not just of light from dark, but of the earthly from the heavenly. This can be challenging, requiring us to reflect deeply and critically on our thoughts, actions, and the motivations that drive them.

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