I Already Do Boundaries….or not…..

Arrogantly, I thought to myself that this wasn’t a Bible study I was really going to learn a lot from, but I’d go for the connection. The topic was “Boundaries”, a topic I was very familiar with, and I was pretty sure I knew the ins and outs of it. I had to correct myself though, surely there is always more to learn, so I would go, and I would even make the choice to expect to receive something, even if just a small tidbit.

Within the first 5 minutes of the video lesson I had to keep my mouth from falling open in disbelief. I had never heard boundaries discussed like this before, and remember I thought I’d heard it all. This was a mind-blowing perspective shift.

What amazed me the most is how the Holy Spirit continues to reveal old news in new ways through different voices who will simply obey. I was hearing it like it was the first time, and the Holy Spirit was connecting it to areas of my life that I had never recognized before as lacking boundaries.

Don’t you love how He does that? God is always faithful to meet us where we are at.. Over and over again I’m humbled and reminded that if we will simply approach God with expectation and humility He will ALWAYS show up in a bigger, better, much more profound way than we even expected. My expectation had been pathetic, and here God was, blowing my mind with how much blessing He could squeeze into my tiny cup of expectation. So I decided to dare to expect a little more, and again, He was faithful to bring more than I knew I could receive.

Do you expect God to meet you in your day? Do you expect Him to talk to you when you make the time to listen? Or do you even stop to make that time? Sadly, in our Western society, not only do we seem to forget to make the space and time for intimacy with God, we don’t even make it a priority to come together as a church the way the Lord instructed us to for our own good.

Why?

I can only speak from my experience, but I think there are probably many of you who can relate. We can blame our unwillingness to make the space and time for God on our busy schedules, our kids, spouses, jobs, or activities, but when we dig to the bottom of the issues it’s most likely an issue of fear. We are afraid to expect anything from God. And churches are full of people, people have disappointed and hurt us.

Self-doubt, or the fear of not being good enough, or shame for what we’ve done can keep us from wanting to draw near to God. We don’t have a full understanding of who we are in Christ, and it prevents us from approaching Him boldly as we are told we can.

Therefore, let us approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need. – Hebrews 4:16

We are afraid of being rejected, disappointed, or confronted with the reality of our own shortcomings. It usually happens gradually, and we may not even be fully aware of our downward spiral into skepticism and bitterness.

Years ago, after many very challenging and painful losses and experiences, without even realizing it, I had become upset with God. I know better, so I was surprised when I realized that I was, in fact, upset with God. I had pulled back my trust, thinking that if he allowed these hurts and disappointments in my life I couldn’t trust Him. I would have to guard my own heart. Truthfully, I wasn’t even aware of this thought pattern that had taken shape.

Over time my thoughts began to trail to criticism. I would pick up my Bible and even before I opened it up I was angry because I didn’t know where I was supposed to read. Then I would open it up to read and be angry because He wasn’t speaking to me the same way He used to when I would make the space and time to be with Him in the word. I have learned enough in my walk with God to know that I can’t hide anything from Him.

So I told Him. I told Him that I was ticked off, but I wasn’t sure why. I wasn’t hearing from Him the way I was used to, and that made it worse. Now I was questioning the things I really thought I knew before. I was reading His words and thinking, “that hasn’t been true in my life.” and something inside me would cringe.

This went on for longer than I care to admit. Daily, I would pick up my Bible and begrudgingly announce to God that I was showing up to be with Him, but I was ticked that He wasn’t showing up the way I wanted Him to. Embarrassing, to say the least, but sometimes, the truth is ugly, and like I said earlier, there’s no point in trying to hide anything from Him. He knows.

One day, desperate to end this dry spell, I decided to approach things differently. I realized that if one of my kids approached me the way that I was approaching God, I probably wouldn’t be able to get through to them either. We can only instill truth into our kids when they have a heart that is open and ready to receive it, when there is trust and mutual respect. One might even call it “expectation.”

You don’t expect anything from someone you don’t respect, except to be disappointed. It’s how we protect ourselves from being disappointed by them. It’s also how some people end up angry and critical, believing that God is a disappointment. The thing is, it’s a cycle. When you don’t expect to receive something from the Lord you are highly unlikely to receive anything from the Lord. Your door is shut, so to speak. When the doors are shut, God stands and knocks, He will never break it down.

I repented, apologizing for my adolescent attitude, and asked the Lord to please show me what was going on in my heart. I didn’t want to go on like this, frustrated and stagnant in my relationship with Him. I wanted the closeness we used to share. Quickly, He met me. I couldn’t believe how easy it was. Simply by changing the posture of my heart to approach Him with respect, or as the Bible calls, the fear of the Lord, I had opened up communication again.

I had postured myself to receive from Him.

What He said was simple, and I didn’t like it, but I was not going to let the bad attitude take over again.

“You’re offended.”

I knew He was right, but I had worked so hard to make it not be true, so to acknowledge that I had failed also meant acknowledging that I had been trying to avoid offence in my own strength, rather than leaning in to grace for the help that I needed. Like we already read,

Therefore, let us approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need. – Hebrews 4:16

Back to the ladies Bible study, the Lord and I had worked through my disappointments, frustrations and offenses from the years prior, and I was enjoying His presence, and hearing more clearly again. What I hadn’t expected is that He would take me back through those memories and experiences to show me that they had actually all been tied to boundary issues. I couldn’t believe how much I was getting out of this Bible study.

Offence is totally a boundaries issue. All the things that I had blamed God for had actually been areas that I had not required others to respect my boundaries, or I had not respected the boundaries of others. Mostly what I learned is that while I had been upset with the Lord about not speaking to me, the Lord had been trying to speak, but I had been surrounded by concrete walls of offence.

If you are struggling to hear from God, I promise, it isn’t because He’s not talking. It’s always a condition of our own hearts.

As soon as I had humbled myself before the Lord, our doors of communication had been opened up again, and the Lord began to show me just how deep my distrust ran. I blamed Him for the challenges I had faced in the year prior, and was now afraid to even ask anything of Him, or share anything with Him, for fear of being hurt and disappointed.

I began to ask the Lord why I had been so afraid of being disappointed by Him. Deep down I knew He wouldn’t disappoint me, so why did the fear of it seem so strong? Gently, he walked back through my memories with me, showing me how He had prepared me to walk through the challenges, and how He had been with me, speaking to me, helping me, bringing peace.

I hadn’t been able to see what I wasn’t looking for. My eyes had been fixed on the hurt, and the people that had disappointed me, so I had put that on the Lord.

Offence will put blinders on our eyes and plugs in our ears. Rather than noticing God’s faithfulness, we only see the weakness of humanity, and blame him for it, when he has given each of us a free will. When we try to live without him, leaving him out of our day to day lives, we are operating in dysfunction, against our design. Then things go wrong, and we blame the Creator who created us to function as one with him. We need him, and he is faithful to be found by those who will boldly approach his throne with respect, expecting that he is who he says he is.

What do you expect from God? If you’re expecting him to fail you, you’ve already failed yourself by putting up a wall between you and him. If you will dare to expect that he is faithful, you’ll be amazed by what else he will show himself to be for you.

I have also been continually surprised by how every area of dysfunction is usually connected to a boundary issue. It is absolutely incredible how the Lord created us, and gave us our own emotions and thoughts to steward, and how we do that affects so much! He has also given others their own emotions and thoughts to steward, and if we think we play any role in controlling or managing those we are misled.

I love how this particular speaker shared it, explaining that boundaries are like property lines with fences, not solid brick walls that cannot be moved. Boundaries can change, and move. The important thing is to remember that you are only responsible for the things inside your yard. Don’t be trying to manipulate, control, or take responsibility for the mess on the other side of the fence.

Before this study, I had been holding myself personally responsible for other people’s feelings and opinions towards me. From birth I’ve only wanted to be good! I wanted to gain people’s approval and make them happy so they will like me. It’s pathetic to say out loud, but I can guarantee I’m not the only one.

Ultimately, everything is a boundaries issue. Truly. If we don’t know what belongs to us and what is the responsibility of others we will live in torment trying to keep everyone happy, taking responsibility for others, and allowing them to overstep into areas that belong to us. Or we will fail to recognize what is God's responsibility and what is mine, and blame him for the messes we have made.

Today, my prayer is that you would pause for a few moments and ask the Lord to reveal to you any areas where your boundaries are out of order, maybe where offence has built a brick wall, or fear and past disappointments are keeping you from expecting God to be faithful towards you. Take the time to be still, to listen, and to fully acknowledge where you’ve blamed him for things that were not his fault, and dare to trust and expect his goodness towards you again. He will teach you gently, and guide you in the healthy operation of good, godly boundaries if you will allow him to.

If you're ready for an eye-opening experience in boundaries, click HERE for the book that changed my entire perspective. I HIGHLY recommend you get your hands on this book, and grab a girlfriend or two to work through it with. There are even videos and a group study on the author's website that have some extra teaching based on each chapter. It has truly been life-changing, and remember this is coming from someone who has read and studied A LOT of boundaries books. This one stands out among the rest

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Be blessed friends,

Courtney