More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
September 13 - September 18, 2023
We set boundaries so we know what to do when we very much want to love those around us really well without losing ourselves in the process.
Boundaries are woven into everything God has done since the very beginning.
We don’t want the hurt they’ve caused to make us betray who we really are.
can’t imagine telling someone who stepped on a sand spur that the problem was her feet. And yet I was doing that to myself when hard relational dynamics hurt my heart.
would never be wise to grant access to others without first being sure that they would be appropriately responsible with that access.
“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”
trying to protect ourselves for love.
We don’t want to get so consumed with the pain and chaos of unhealthy relationship patterns that we become a carrier of human hurt rather than a conduit of God’s love.
Love can be unconditional but relational access ...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
Too much access without the correct responsibility is detrimental.
we’ve given them level-ten access but they are only willing or capable of level-three responsibility, that’s the real source of the problem.
People who are irresponsible with our hearts should not be granted great access to our hearts.
am wired to want peace. I want everyone to be calm, happy, and stable. Anything that seems to disrupt peace bothers me.
Trust me with this. If someone is demanding you drop a boundary or trying to charm and convince you that it’s no longer necessary—beware.
When we allow a boundary to be violated, bad behavior will be validated.
He wasn’t trying to be cruel to Adam and Eve. He was trying to protect their freedom.
We are to guard and protect our hearts and our minds to make sure we keep good in and evil out.
Proverbs 31:30 warns us that “charm is deceptive.” It’s so easy to be charmed into dropping a boundary.
I pray that You would continue to work in me and through me so that I can be the healthiest, most whole, yielded-to-You version of myself.
the focus of this verse and the surrounding verses isn’t to shame us for being anxious but rather to remind us that the Lord is near and what to do proactively with our thoughts when anxiety comes.
It’s time to shift your focus to what you can control with your boundary:
Your boundary should help set the stage so your emotions can stay more regulated, you can regain a sense of safety, and you can feel more empowered to make necessary changes.
Proverbs 15:1 says, “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.”
Colossians 4:6 says, “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.”
Avoid using the words always and never or any other language of extremes.
wait twenty minutes for your prefrontal cortex (the “thinking” brain) to resume logical thoughts.
The tension exists because you are doing the difficult work of no longer cooperating with dysfunction.
“What people don’t work out, they act out.” Their unwillingness to address the issues driving their behavior is their choice.
need to lift up our eyes . . . from where our help comes (Psalm 121:1–2).
sober mind can also be an instruction not to let ourselves get out of control with our emotions as well.
Peter is telling us what to do with our anxiety. We are to cast it on the Lord. And we are to be alert and sober-minded. God has a part, and we have a part.
to what is affecting and triggering our emotions.
I didn’t understand that the rules were to help us learn how to be responsible humans. Those rules evoked in me a great fear of being judged as a bad person.
We can’t control what others believe. We can’t control what others feel. We can’t control what others do. But we can control and be responsible for ourselves.
Boundaries remind us of the right definition of healthy.
Basically, I can’t let other people’s fractured thinking affect me to the point where I get my thinking out of alignment with God’s truth.
We’ve got to know who we are, so we don’t lose ourselves in the fractured realities of others.
clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.
maybe we shouldn’t forget to also have others do unto us as we would do unto them.
chances are we either don’t have the right kind of people in our life or we don’t have the right kind of boundaries.
was afraid that because I told her no and drew a boundary, she would withdraw from me.
to stay “good” with another person, we stop paying attention to our own well-being. And we run such a risk of becoming the worst version of ourselves:
We can so easily be derailed, distracted, and devastated when we don’t get what we think we must have. Therefore, making sure to set ourselves up so someone will meet our needs becomes one of our primary motivations and lifelines to feeling settled and secure.
The less we get what we feel we need from someone, the more we are tempted to react in extremes.
But the raw truth is we will always desperately want from other people what we fear we will never get from God.
it’s not by being another person’s savior. Keeping someone from feeling their own desperate need for God isn’t love—it’s cruel.
we shouldn’t and ultimately can’t be the one to supply all of what another person needs.
God has a limitless supply, only He can meet all our needs (Philippians 4:19).
for good to happen, goodbyes have to happen first.
Remember all the work you’ve done to draw boundaries was not about controlling someone else’s behavior.
