How Clear Boundaries Protect What Matters Most in Your Life
“Growing Sensitive & Strong” is the life-changing program that moves you from “What’s wrong with me?” to comfortable and confident in who God made you as a Highly Sensitive Person.
Learn more right here.
“Your boundary lines mark out pleasant places for me.
Indeed, my inheritance is something beautiful.”
Psalm 16:6 (GWT)
It’s the fall of 1989 — my first year teaching.
My class has twenty-one boys and seven girls, and 99.9% of the time, I’m pulling my hair out over the girls. Because junior high school girls can be so subtle … even sly.
Words I wouldn’t use about any of my boys — especially not Jessie Elmore.
Jessie is a born leader, but right now he’s the shortest boy in the class. He doesn’t know that in six years, I’ll run into him at a student leadership conference, and he’ll be a high school senior, towering over everyone in the room.
Today, he just knows that he’s HAD IT.
And he’s letting everyone within a mile radius know. The problem that has Jessie Elmore so upset is that our soccer field isn’t a proper athletic field. It’s just a vacant lot with irregular edges.
There’s a general agreement among the students that the ball is considered “out” when it’s kicked past the big rock on the west end of the field and the old tree stump on the east end.
Most days, that’s good enough.
But not today.
Right now, the ball sits smack in the middle of “no man’s land.” One team declares it’s IN … the other team insists it’s OUT.
Jessie has spent the last ten minutes lying flat on his stomach, trying to coax his opponents to rationally agree with what he sees as he aligns his body between the rock and the stump.
Finally, his patience frays to the breaking point. He stands up and calls out:
“Where’s the line? I just need to know: Where is the line?”
That cry wasn’t just about a soccer ball on a dusty field. It was the cry of every heart:
Where’s the line?
We all long for clarity — not arbitrary rocks and stumps, but real defined boundaries.
Oh, we may tell ourselves that we long for freedom, by which we mean endless options. An “unlimited life.”
But without clear boundaries, everything eventually breaks down. Energy runs out. Relationships unravel. Opportunities crumble.
God’s boundaries aren’t restrictions; they’re protections.
Clear lines on the soccer field would have kept the game moving instead of devolving into chaos. And clear lines in our lives keep us from floundering in uncertainty, overcommitment, and regret.
God’s boundary lines are carefully placed markers that safeguard us.
Like a picket fence with a gate — strong enough to protect what matters, yet open enough to welcome connection and joy.
So the next time you feel yourself resisting a boundary God is setting, try asking these two clarifying questions:
- What will this protect?
- What will this make possible?
And remember:
The freedom you long for is found within God’s clear boundaries, which mark out pleasant places for you and secure your inheritance.
Ahhhhh … there’s the line.
