Can Christians have Strong Boundaries?
Or do we just need to keep turning the other cheek?
Over the years, I have found many Christians don’t understand their rights to boundaries.
Verses like “turn the other cheek” and “give your suers your cloak” convince them they’re confined to a life of passivity.
But Jesus’s words don’t encourage us to be passive. They encourage us to be powerful and love others from a place of strength.
Boundaries are great tools we can use to protect ourselves from unsafe situations and people.
Even Jesus Used Boundaries
In the bestseller, Keep Your Love On, Danny Silk explores how even Jesus needed to set up boundaries. Danny writes:
“To see the pattern for the Christian life, we must look at Jesus. When we do, we see that Jesus prioritized certain relationships over others… His primary allegiance was always to the Father… Everything Jesus did revolved around prioritizing that core relationship above all others.”
Setting Healthy Boundaries with Family and Friends
Sometimes we even need to set up healthy boundaries with our closets family members and friends. When these relationships hurt us and refuse to regain our trust, boundaries are a great option to keep ourselves safe from repeated or future occurrences. Danny writes:
“Sadly, sometimes people in our inner circle hurt or scare us very seriously and are unwilling to clean up the mess they made. If that happens, we must move them out to a place of access that they can handle. Some people who once held the “most intimate” place in our lives may find themselves out in the furthest sphere. We can keep our love on toward them, but it may be a very long time before we ever have them over for dinner.”
As Christians, we are called to forgive, but we also don’t have to keep letting unsafe people into our lives.
If a close relationship is continually causing you pain, consider implementing some strong, healthy boundaries into your life.
Learn More on Boundaries
If you want to know more about boundaries and how to use them, check out Dr. Cloud and Townsend’s book, Boundaries, Dann Farelly’s “Brave Communication”, and, of course, Danny Silk’s Keep Your Love On.
Here’s to all of us growing in our skills of setting healthy boundaries!
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