It has recently been brought to my attention that I let people poop in my yard! While I can assure you that I most definitely don’t truly allow people to poop in my yard; I most certainly do have a problem with boundaries. The reference to keep your own yard clean came from a profound Christian author (and was brought to my attention by a profound Christian woman) who wrote a book about boundaries and how they should be applied to our Christian lives. I find great truth in this statement however, I don’t possibly have time to keep my yard clean because my time is spent making sure others don’t allow toxic waste to collect in their yards. I also find truth in knowing I could quite possibly have the dirtiest yard in the Eastern Time zone. I supported that truth when my clock went off at 6:30 this morning. I had agreed to babysit this morning simply because I didn’t have a single reason not to. I thought about calling an hour before I was scheduled to be there and use being tired as an excuse but I didn’t think it would go over well. As I was drinking coffee at an hour I hadn’t seen in months, I said “I will remember this the next time someone wants to use the bathroom in my yard.” I remembered until I was at Wal-Mart looking for a specific bag of pretzels (and only a specific bag of pretzels) for my grandma and ran into an old family friend. Before I go any further, it is necessary to state that she addressed me as Aunt Jay and instantly commented on how adorable Hudson is. (keep telling yourself that as I continue my story) As we were talking, she asked if I would be available on Sunday August 7th. Instead of saying for what I opened up the gate to my yard and said, “I should be after 12:00.” And that my friends is how I landed a spot as a judge for an upcoming pageant. (At least I have 2 weeks to transform into a girl who likes high heels and glitter) She tried to make the commitment I had just made seem more appealing by saying I would get into the fair for free all week. Little did she know, I was already getting in free all week because I had committed to making cotton candy in the 100 degree heat earlier in the week.
Clearly, I have a problem with boundaries mostly because I rid the word from my vocabulary when it comes to giving myself away for others but I somehow lived a huge portion of my life setting up boundaries when it came to giving myself away for Jesus. I grasped the do unto others concept and the love your neighbor like yourself commandment when I was a teenager but I didn’t fully grasp the God is all you need truth until a few weeks ago. I would be contraindicating (PT word) my faith if I didn’t believe and live out that truth daily but I would be lying if I said I didn’t live it out with my own personal boundaries involved. Until a little girl melted my heart in the Dominican Republic (when I stop making cotton candy and painting toenails at 10:00 am I will catch you up on all of my mission trip babbles), I was completely guilty of allowing boundaries to exist between God and I. My boundaries weren’t necessarily forms of bondage but they most definitely were allowing Satan a small hold on my life. I was choosing to see my life through the eyes of a God can attitude opposed to a God will today attitude. I trusted God with the circumstances of my life but I didn’t actively claim victory each day. I lived out my faith knowing God was in control opposed to expecting Him to be in control moment by moment. I prayed in future tense opposed to saying God today will be the day you perform miracles. I was waiting to see God move in the big areas of my life opposed to the small areas of my life. The only thing wrong with seeing God this way is that in doing so we set up boundaries to how He can work in our lives. Or we put Him in a box. (My biggest boundary in Christ) If we allow boundaries to exist within our relationship with Christ we are ultimately limiting His awesomeness. We are keeping our yards full of junk when He wants to come in and clean it up daily. The truth is we can’t contain God. We can’t build boundaries strong enough or tall enough to keep Him from loving us and seeking after us. Unfortunately, we can’t stop Satan from attacking us either…He is a ruthless lawn dumper. What boundaries exist between you and God? Have you put up walls within your faith because you have a God can opposed to a God will attitude? When we allow ourselves to set up boundaries in Christ; Satan is delightfully happy because we have trained ourselves to dirty our own yards. We have trained ourselves to expect or to be content with less of God. Open up the fence to your heart today friends. Tell God how much you need Him and how much you love Him and most importantly ask Him what boundaries in your life are keeping you from all that He has for you.
I can’t promise you that I will one day set boundaries in order to keep others from making my lawn a public dump site but I can promise you that I will daily dump the garbage Satan tries to use for boundaries in my relationship with God back in his yard. Hopefully, that will make my favorite profound Christian woman proud. (If not, I will remind her that at least I keep my room clean…I’m still working on keeping it “tidy”.)
Verse to remember: Psalm 89
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