Boundaries
Like almost everyone I know (except Rebecca!) I have sometimes been a bit of a coward about maintaining boundaries in my life. I don’t like saying no to people and I often fear that saying no will hurt their feelings or minister rejection. I’ve sometimes viewed setting boundaries as the opposite of laying down my life for my brothers and sisters in Christ and have felt selfish and self-centered about limiting other’s access to me.
I’ve tended to think of setting and maintaining boundaries as a negative thing — saying no to people, confronting people, setting limits on relationships — and I haven’t always liked it when other people have set boundaries that limited me! But recently, as the Lord has been dealing with me once again about boundaries, I have come to realize that God’s perspective on boundaries is quite different from mine.
Setting limits is and was integral to God’s creation methods. In the beginning, when God took the “formless and void” and turned it into a universe of order and beauty, He successively spoke things into existence and then set boundaries for them. For instance, He created light and then divided light from darkness, assigning each a tenure, a boundary which He called day and night, thus creating time. So God created and then He set boundaries for His creation. Similarly, when God divided waters from waters and made dry land, He created the lakes and oceans by limiting (setting boundaries around) the places where the water could go. Once again He created and then set boundaries for what He had created. If you want a treatise on this divinely repetitive process of creation followed by a setting of boundaries, read Job 38-39.
So God likes boundaries and sees them as positive things that bring order out of chaos and open rather than close doors of creativity. If God had not put a boundary around the oceans then the dry land could not have been established and much of the rest of creation would not have been possible. Hmmm.
As I’ve been meditating on these things, I’ve come to see that God’s boundaries define His creation. It is the boundary that God set around the Atlantic Ocean that defines it and that defines all the dry land on the other side of the Atlantic’s borders. Iceland would not be there — and Greenland and North and South America and Europe and Africa and all the little islands in the Atlantic — if God had not set a boundary around the waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
In the same way, boundaries define me — who I am and who I am not. When I say yes to Jesus I have to say no, in some measure, to everything else in my life. I cannot belong wholly to Him unless I am willing to set and maintain boundaries that reflect His preeminence in my life. If I refuse or resist maintaining good boundaries then my life will become a chaos and my God-given personhood will find no expression. I would even venture to say that godly boundaries facilitate my relationships with others rather than stifling them.
I cannot be “me” until I am willing to say no to those things that are “not me”.
I would love to hear your thoughts on boundaries, so feel free to sign in and post a comment!
Some really good thoughts here, Rebecca. Thanks for posting your comments. I totally agree with what you mentioned about navel-gazing. The answers are never to be found inside ourselves but only in Him! Self-centeredness is a distraction at best. I also like what you mention about setting boundaries out of our own soul hurts. I think that is so often what we do. We tend to protect those places in ourselves where we are injured. That is not a bad thing and may sometimes be necessary, but it is so liberating when we get healed and can set boundaries solely out of love and sanctity.
My favorite line was… ‘I cannot be “me” until I am willing to say no to those things that are “not me”.’ In fact, I’m stealing it and putting it as my MySpace profile quote. Contrary to your “looking at me through lenses of love” opinion, I am learning every day how to set better personal boundaries. (But thanks for the shout-out anyway!) I’ve just spent two weeks tucked away with the Lord, and a large part of what He ministered deeply to me was the very thing of saying “No!” every-SINGLE-time to those things that are not me. It surely applies to the natural, but at least for me, much more so spiritually; specifically, my identity. It’s imperative that we be diligent in setting boundaries on what we allow our souls to receive about our identity. Rest assured the enemy is assiduous in carrying out incessant assignments of identity fraud against us. We need to come to that place of Holy resolve where, as an act of war, we engage our submitted wills and say, “This far and nor farther!” I am convinced more and more that the key to properly discerning and setting godly boundaries is keeping the eyes of our heart fixated on Truth Himself. When He is manifested, we shall resemble and be like Him, for we shall see Him just as He really is. (John 3:2, Amplified Version)
We’ve heard it said time and again, “Don’t look at the circumstance of your storm or you’ll sink.” Amen to this, but I must add, “Don’t look at your belly button or you’ll sink!” Prolonged introspection produces the same result as fixing your eyes on your circumstances in the middle of a crisis, because both cause you to look away from Him. The enemy doesn’t care WHY you lose focus, only that you do. If John 3:2 is true, then the only way we’ll know who we truly are, and therefore be able to set boundaries with ourselves and with others, is by looking at the true Plumb Line and Him alone. The longer we fasten our eyes on Him, the more illuminated we are to Who He really is. The more illuminated we are to Who He really is, the more sanctified and healed we become. The more sanctified and healed we become, the easier and more natural it becomes to set boundaries – because we aren’t setting them (or NOT setting them) out of our own soul hurts or out of the fear of man.
As we begin walking in an unbroken gaze, fascinated by the wonderful mystery of being perfectly loved, we see the beauty of boundaries for what they really are: honoring the Lord, honoring others, and honoring ourselves. We then instinctively transmogrify (thanks, Michael) into women of order without apologies, because doing what we see the Father doing simply becomes a natural response to spending time with Him.
I submit, therefore, that not setting boundaries with ourselves is really just the act of deciding to walk in deception. Likewise, not setting boundaries with others is choosing to intentionally lead them into deception. Setting boundaries truly is the loving thing to do.
I am so glad to see you blogging, Gloria and I love what you have written on boundaries. I don’t have the time to dive into the subject of “boundaries” at the moment but will come back and do so at a later time. Thanks for sharing with all of us! By the way….I love the new website!!!
With Love and Devotion, Sarah Goebel