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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Henry Cloud
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March 21 - April 24, 2023
We need to be able to say no to ourselves. This includes both our destructive desires and some good ones that are not wise to pursue at a given time.
Jim avoided her eyes. “Honey, I know, I know,” he replied. “I’d really like to say no to people more, but it’s just so hard to—” “I found someone you can say no to,” Becca broke in. “Me and the kids!”
The “my way or else” approach teaches children to pretend to be obedient, at least when the parent is in earshot.
“You have a choice: Make your bed, and I’ll let you play Xbox; don’t make your bed, and you lose your Xbox privileges for the rest of the day.” The child decides how much pain he is willing to endure to be disobedient.
The problem with overcontrol is this: while a major responsibility of good parents is certainly to control and protect, they must make room for their children to make mistakes.
Eileen’s parents’ lack of limits on her hurt her character development.
But no one can really escape the disciplines of life. They will always win out. We always reap what we sow. And the later in life it is, the sadder a picture it is, for the stakes are higher.
Jesus told the rich young man a hard truth about eternal life. He understood that the man worshiped money. So he told him to give it away—to make room in his heart for God. The results were not encouraging: “When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth” (Matt. 19:22). Jesus could have manipulated the situation so that it was less hard to swallow. He could have said, “Well, how about 90 percent?” After all, he’s God, and he makes up the rules! But he didn’t. He knew that the young man had to know whom to worship. So he let him walk away. We can do no less. We
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Try our “litmus test” experiment with your significant relationships. Tell them no in some area. You’ll either come out with increased intimacy—or learn that there was very little to begin with.
Will some people abandon or attack us for having boundaries? Yes. Better to learn about their character and take steps to fix the problem than never to know.
Saying no to adults, who are responsible for getting their own needs met, may cause some discomfort. They may have to look elsewhere. But it doesn’t cause injury.
Jesus left the multitudes, for example, to be alone with his Father (Matt. 14:22–23). In these instances, we have to allow others to take responsibility for their “knapsacks” (see Gal. 6:5) and to look elsewhere to get their needs met.
Remember that God had no problem telling Paul that he would not take away his thorn. He tells all of us no quite often! God doesn’t worry that his boundaries will injure us. He knows we are to take responsibility for our lives—and sometimes no helps us do just that.
Jesus’ rage at the defilement of the temple is an example of how this feeling functions (John 2:13–17). Anger tells us that our boundaries have been violated. Much like a nation’s radar defense system, angry feelings serve as an “early warning system,” telling us we’re in danger of being injured or controlled.
However, as with all emotions, anger doesn’t understand time. Anger doesn’t dissipate automatically if the danger occurred two minutes ago—or twenty years ago! It has to be worked through appropriately. Otherwise, anger simply lives inside the heart.
This is why individuals with injured boundaries often are shocked by the rage they feel inside when they begin setting limits. This is generally not “new anger”—it’s “old anger.” It’s often years of nos that were never voiced, never respected, and never listened to. The protests against all the evil and violation of our souls sit inside us, waiting to tell their truths.
What do we owe not only our parents but anyone who has been loving toward us? What’s appropriate and biblical, and what isn’t? Many individuals solve this dilemma by avoiding boundary setting with those to whom they feel an obligation. In this sense, they can avoid the guilty feelings that occur when they say no to someone who has been kind to them. They never leave home, never change schools or churches, and never switch jobs or friends. Even when it would be an otherwise mature move.
The problem is the nonexistent debt. The love we receive, or money, or time—or anything that causes us to feel obligated—should be accepted as a gift.
The giver has no expectation that the present will provide a return. It was simply provided because someone loved someone and wanted to do something for him or her. Period.
People who own their lives do not feel guilty when they make choices about where they are going. They take other people into consideration, but when they make choices for the wishes of others, they are choosing out of love, not guilt; to advance a good, not to avoid being bad.
One sure sign of boundary problems is when your relationship with one person has the power to affect your relationships with others. You are giving one person way too much power in your life.
God has designed the process whereby a “man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh” (Gen. 2:24 KJV). The Hebrew word for “leave” comes from a root word that means to “loosen,” or to relinquish or forsake.
Many adult children perpetually get into financial messes because of irresponsibility, drug or alcohol use, out-of-control spending, or the modern “I haven’t found my niche” syndrome. Their parents continue to finance this road of failure and irresponsibility, thinking that “this time they’ll do better.” In reality, they are crippling their children for life, preventing them from achieving independence.
Adults who do not stand on their own financially are still children. To be an adult, you must live within your means and pay for your own failures.
In the perpetual child syndrome, a person may be financially on his own, but he allows his family of origin to perform certain life management functions. This adult child often hangs out at Mom and Dad’s house, vacations with them, drops off laundry, and eats many meals there. He is Mom or Dad’s closest confidant, sharing “everything” with them.
Triangulation is the failure to resolve a conflict between two persons and the pulling in of a third to take sides. This is a boundary problem because the third person has no business in the conflict but is used for comfort and validation by the ones who are afraid to confront each other. This is how conflicts persist, people don’t change, and enemies are made unnecessarily.
Another frequent dynamic is the grown sibling relationship. An irresponsible adult child depends on a responsible adult sibling to avoid growing up and leaving the family.
These patterns are not new, they have just never been confronted and repented of. These patterns run deep. Your family members are the ones you learned to organize your life around, so they are able to send you back to old patterns by their very presence. You begin to act automatically out of memory instead of growth. To change, you must identify these “sins of the family” and turn from them.
The first step in establishing boundaries is becoming aware of old family patterns that you are still continuing in the present.
God commands us to look to him as our Father and to have no parental intermediaries. Adults who are still holding an allegiance to earthly parents have not realized their new adoptive status.
Many times we are not obeying the Word of God because we have not spiritually left home. We feel we still need to please our parents and follow their traditional ways of doing things rather than obey our new Father (Matt. 15:1–6).
This in no way means that we are to cut other ties. We are to have friends outside of God’s family and strong ties with our family of origin. However, we need to ask two questions: Do these ties keep us from doing the right thing in any situation? and Have we really become an adult in relation to our family of origin?
“Take the log out” of your own eye. Then you will be able to see clearly to deal with your family members. See yourself as the problem and find your boundary violations.
Refusing to forgive a family member is one of the main reasons people are stuck for years, unable to separate from their dysfunctional families.
The difference between responding and reacting is choice. When you are reacting, they are in control. When you respond, you are.
The result of two compliants’ interacting is that neither does what he really wants. Each is so afraid of telling the other the truth that neither ever does.
They may need to separate more from each other. Having different friends for different activities is no blot on the relationship; it might help their friendship in the long run.
Since the compliant is usually unhappy in this relationship, he is the one who needs to take action.
The compliant probably grew up in a family who taught him to avoid conflict rather than embrace it. The aggressive controller never received training in delaying gratification and in taking responsibility for herself.
She’s not consciously trying to manipulate her friend; however, no matter what her good intentions are, when she’s in a jam, Sharon uses her friends. She takes them for granted, thinking that they shouldn’t mind doing a friend a favor.
She lived in a very forgiving universe, where nice people would always help her out. She never had to face her own irresponsibility and lack of discipline and planning.
Biblically and practically, nothing could be further from the truth. We hear this thinking in many Christian circles: “If you don’t like someone, act like you do.” Or “make yourself love them.” Or “commit to loving someone.” Or “choose to love someone, and the feelings will come.”
How does this apply to friendships? Look at it this way. How would you feel if your best buddy approached you and said: “I just wanted to tell you that the only reason we’re friends is because I’m committed to our friendship. There’s nothing that draws me to you. I don’t particularly enjoy your company. But I will keep choosing to be your friend.” You probably wouldn’t feel very safe or cherished in this relationship. You’d suspect you were being befriended out of obligation, not out of love.
Dating is a way for adults to grow in various ways and to find out about each other’s suitability for marriage; it’s not a place for injured souls to find healing.
They misunderstand the biblical function of the family. God intended the family to be an incubator in which we grow the maturity, tools, and abilities we need. Once the incubator has done its job, then it’s supposed to encourage the young adult to leave the nest and connect to the outside world
No one can become a truly biblical adult without setting some limits, leaving home, and cleaving somewhere else. Otherwise, we never know if we have forged our own values, beliefs, and convictions—our very identity—or if we are mimicking the ideas of our family.
Can family be friends? Absolutely. But if you have never questioned, set boundaries, or experienced conflict with your family members, you may not have an adult-to-adult connection with your family.
If you have no other “best friends” than your family, you need to take a close look at those relationships. You may be afraid of separating and indiv...
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“You know,” I said, “I’m asking you about friendships, and you’re answering about ministries. They’re not the same thing.”
