At Second Glance - The Boundaries We Need

A second look at this past week's message from Shoal Creek's Student Ministries...

This past Sunday at Shoal Creek, we asked the question, "Why do we need boundaries?" We tried to answer it by saying that without boundaries, we will run into things that will hurt us. And I think that for the most part, as kind of a general rule, we agree with that. There are good reasons behind the planning and setting of rules and boundaries that I must observe when I get in my car and onto the highway. Mainly, that my life and the lives of others be preserved through my (and hopefully) their adherence to the boundaries MDOT sets before us.

So as a general rule, when we can connect the dots between prescribed boundaries and our safety, we find it easy to live in concordance with rules and boundaries. The problem, the rub, comes when we doubt that a certain boundary is indeed "for our own good." When aiming this conversation at the spiritual, we are really asking deep in our hearts, "Is God good? Is God for me, or against me, or at least unconcerned with me at all?"

To get right to it, this whole argument comes down to TRUST. We are either people who trust God (and therefore are more readily compliant with the boundaries He sets), or we are people who struggle to trust in a God (and are therefore less readily compliant to what He may be asking).

To grow in trust with God, we must pursue God as a community while going through the trials and doubts that we face daily. Community, being together with others seeking the same goal (in this case, the goal being to grow closer to God), is vital to personal growth. It is so extremely tantamount to real, personal connection with God that we share with other humans the humanly struggles we face. Otherwise, what we regularly fall into, and what we may be facing even now, is extreme distrust that God really does care about me and what the best for me.

I promise you, the God of the Christian Bible DOES love you and want what's best for you--even if other external or internal forces are trying to convince you otherwise! However, I will never be able to share my story with you, my understanding of God's unconditional love that exists deeper than any adversity, if I never get a chance to talk with you and know what makes it hard for you to trust God.

If we want to grow closer to God, we MUST talk about what keeps us from trusting Him. Otherwise, if we're not communally working on trusting Him, we'll turn our backs on Him whenever He suggests we follow a certain course of action, or make a certain decision, that might be counterintuitive to what we're feeling or thinking in the moment.

I think I'm seeing just how deep "self-preservation" runs in my soul. How, when push comes to shove, I want to preserve or elevate my way of life (thinking/feeling) above your way of life. Inside me resides an "I want what I want, and you better not get in the way of me getting what I want!" type of core. 

But I'm also learning that when I elevate my desires to being more important to me than anything else, I end up hurting myself and the people I care about. The only healthy way forward, I think, is to learn to live by God's will, God's design, God's desires for my life.

That means that the most important thing I can do in any day that I take breath is to work on trying to trust God more, which might mean me needing to talk with others about the obstacles that are keeping me from being able to do so.