Last week, we kicked off a new series entitled Boundaries: Setting Healthy Limits. The aim of this series is to help us establish godly boundaries for our lives, primarily in our relationships. This is predicated on the idea that clear boundaries are a part of every healthy relationship.
We started this series by talking about a simple idea: boundaries are biblical. Boundaries have been a part of God’s creation since the beginning. We noted that whenever God creates or gives a command, He’s establishing a boundary. That means boundaries are inherently good. Of course, Satan comes along and blurs God’s boundaries — both in the Garden of Eden but also in our lives. You can probably think of an area of your life where Satan tempts you to blur God’s clear boundary. That’s why God tells us to guard our hearts above all else (Proverbs 4:23). God is saying that it is important for us to have healthy boundaries.
And this week, we want to build on that foundation by looking at several biblical principles for developing healthy boundaries. Over the next three weeks, I’d like for us to focus on these three principles:
- The Principle of Responsibility
- The Principle of Reaping
- The Principle of Respect
Today we will focus on the first of these: the principle of responsibility.
I want to begin with a story that Dr. Henry Cloud tells in his Boundaries book. I’ve edited it slightly for brevity.
The parents of a twenty-five-year-old man came to see me with a typical request: they wanted me to “fix” their son, John. When I asked where John was, they answered, “Oh, he didn’t want to come.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Well, he doesn’t think he has a problem,” they replied.
They recited a history of their son’s problems that began at a very young age. John had never quite measured up to their high expectations. As a young man, he had developed a drug problem; he kept dropping out of school; and he couldn’t keep a job.
It was apparent that they loved their son very much and were heartbroken over the way he was living. They had tried everything they knew to get him to take responsibility for his life, but nothing seemed to work.
They told me that they had always given him everything he needed. He had plenty of money at school “so he wouldn’t have to work and he would have plenty of time for study and a social life.” When he flunked out of one school or stopped going to classes, they did everything they could to get him into another school, “where it might be better for him.”
After they had talked for a while, I responded: “I think your son is right. He doesn’t have a problem.”
They stared at me in disbelief before the father finally snapped back, “You don’t think he has a problem?”
I said, “That’s correct. He doesn’t have a problem. You do. You pay his bills, you fret over his school situation, you exert all this energy to keep him going. He doesn’t have a problem because you keep taking his problems away from him. Those things should be his problem, but as it stands now, they are yours. Would you like for me to help you help him to have some problems?”
When they asked what I meant by this, I said, “Well, I think we need to clarify some boundaries so that his actions cause him problems and not you.”
The father asked, “What do you mean by boundaries?”
I said, “Look at it this way. It’s as if he’s your neighbor and he never waters his lawn. But whenever you turn on your sprinkler system, your water falls on his yard. Your grass is brown and dying, but his yard is just fine. That’s how your son’s life is. He doesn’t study or work, yet he has a nice place to live, plenty of money, and all the rights of a family member who is doing his part. If you would define the property lines a little better, if you would fix the sprinkler system so that the water would fall on your lawn, he would have to live with the consequences of his actions. And he might not like that after a while.”
Then I said, “As it stands now, he is irresponsible and happy while you are responsible and miserable. You need to change that equation and some clear boundaries would do the trick. You need some fences to keep his problems out of your yard and in his yard, where they belong.”
The father asked, “Isn’t that a bit cruel, just to stop helping like that?”
I asked, “Has helping him helped?”
The look on their faces told me that they were finally beginning to understand.
This is a key idea when it comes to boundaries: boundaries show us the things for which we are responsible and the things for which we are NOT responsible.
Good boundaries reflect ownership. They will help you take ownership of your own feelings, your behavior, your actions. And once you take ownership of these things, then you can start taking responsibility for them. A good boundary helps you say, “This is my property; I’m responsible for this. And that is your property over there; and you are responsible for that.”
We understand how this works out with the boundaries of our own property. Remember my story about my neighbor who puts his trash can in front of my house? He’s crossing the boundary! That’s easy to notice. But we need to be equally clear about our emotional and relational boundaries.
And sometimes we have difficulty marking out that territory.
already & not yet 