The Purpose of Boundaries

Boundaries serve two important functions for us. First, they help us define our identity. Our personal identity is defined by the boundaries of our bodies. Our national identity is defined by the boundaries of our country. Our spiritual identity is defined by whether we are in Adam or born again in Christ (see Romans 5:15-20). Without boundaries, our identities would be blurred. Boundaries help us define who we are.

Second, boundaries provide us with security. Our military reassures us of a commitment to protect our borders and ensure our safety. Americans are supposed to feel safe within the boundaries of their homes. That is, when I am on my property in my home, the laws of this country exist to make me feel secure within the confines of my home. Boundaries are to help us define our identity and to provide us with security. When you allow your life to get out of bounds you feel insecure.

There are various kinds of boundaries that help us with our identity and our security.

Spiritual Boundaries

God defines the spiritual boundaries of our lives in His Word. This is why it is important to believe in the infallibility of Scriptures. God has spoken with clarity and authority in defining the spiritual boundaries of our lives. For example, the Ten Commandments, the Sermon on the Mount, and the Lord's Prayer define the things believers should do and the things believers should not do.

The Ten Commandments, specifically, guide us in our relationship with God and our relationships with each other. The first four talk about our relationship with God. “Thou shalt have no other Gods before me” (Exodus 20:3) tells me that when I have another God, I am out of bounds in my relationship with God. If I make unto myself any graven image (see Exodus 20:4), if I begin to worship what I produced with my hands, or what someone else has produced with their hands or an object of nature, when I make a graven image, I am out of bounds. That worship comes between God and me.

Beginning with the fifth commandment, we start to talk about marriage and the family. Then, with the seventh, we talk about our neighbor and our relationship with our neighbor. What is God doing here? He is setting the bounds for our lives so that behavior within these bounds identifies us as His children.

When we can find “our attitudes and behavior” within the limits of God's Word, we are clearly identified as His children and we feel safe and secure in His love.

Emotional Boundaries

Healthy people will put boundaries on emotions. They will set limits on anger, fear, guilt, and anxiety.

The awareness of our need to do this is reflected in such colloquial expressions as, “Don’t get carried away” and, “do not let your feelings run away with you.” Our emotions can easily get out of control if we will let them. Anger, fear, guilt, and anxiety are all emotions that tend to feed on themselves.

Anger, for example, causes you to say things, to take actions that complicate your life and that bring all kinds of pain and confusion because you are out of bounds in your anger. Often I sit with people who say, “I wish I had not said that,” or, “I wish I had not done that.” Once anger has overwhelmed you and impulsive choices are made, you have to deal with the consequences. Beware of letting anger take your behavior out of bounds.

We need God’s help in discerning the emotions other people project. That is, we need to understand the kinds of feelings we experience when we are around certain other people. Angry people, for example, will either provoke angry or frightened feelings in us. One of the ways angry people dominate us is to make us feel afraid of them. Another possibility is that they irritate us, agitate us. Eventually, we feel a need to confront them. We need to become aware of the feelings other people carry about and project onto us. We risk blurring our identity and threatening our security.

Intellectual Boundaries

Remember that it was violating an intellectual boundary that got Eve into trouble. Satan made her question the authenticity of God’s Word (see Genesis 3). Beginning to question the infallibility of the Bible is a slippery slope that lands you in the middle of a sea of moral relativism with no way to shore.

This is the position liberal Christianity finds itself in today. Over a hundred years ago people began to question the infallible authority of God’s Word, and began to change their definitions of theological terms. They lost their original identity. These people are insecure in belief systems. Their message is not life transforming for the people who look to them for spiritual identity. The security is gone; the identity is gone.

I believe that there are limits we should put upon the questions we entertain. For the enemy uses questions to raise doubt and doubt to confuse our identity. And when he has confused our spiritual identity, he has compromised our security.

God puts few limits on our curiosity. He knows the difference between honest doubting such as Thomas had (see John 20:24-29) and defiant disobedience such as Satan exhibited in his rebellion against God.

You can take a look at all the different denominations and you know that people feel free to differ in how to interpret the Word of God. That is a freedom God gives us, and it defines the variety of denominations we have in the family of Jesus Christ. But when it comes to questioning the infallibility of the Word of God—that is out of bounds. When we begin to press beyond those limits, we endanger our identity as the people of God and our security in the love of God.

Physical Boundaries

Each of us need from 1½- to two feet of space to feel safely identified. If you want to be healthy, you will respect another person’s space–and you will not allow them to violate your space.

Of course, I think in different cultures when the density of population is different, the dimensions required for a feeling of security are different as well. Colloquially, we recognize the role physical space plays in our identity and security when we talk about “getting in a person’s face” as a way of treating them with disrespect. Such a violation of another person’s physical space puts them and us at risk.

If we want to secure our identity and safety, we need to guard the boundaries of our lives carefully. By that I mean we need to guard the boundaries of our bodies carefully and to respect the other person’s body boundaries as well.

Is your life out of bounds? Spiritually, are you trying to respect the healthy limits God’s Word defines for your life? Emotionally, are you overwhelming other people with your feelings or being overwhelmed by them? Are you intellectually challenging the authenticity of the Scriptures? Are you getting careless with your physical affections?

The Great Referee of Life is calling you back in bounds today. He wants to clear up the confusion in your life. He wants to secure your identity as His child. Open your life to Him. Confess your sins to Jesus, and He will bring your life back into the safety of His loving presence.

Copyright by Dr. Richard D. Dobins @ Akron, Ohio; 2000.