Boundaries

Day one hundred thirty

We had a really good lesson on Self-talk for FHE last night and I was still thinking about it this morning.  I am going to practice more positive and less negative self-talk today.  With that in mind, I prayed that the Lord would help me recognize the positive things in my life and help me see more of the "can do's" and focus less on the "can't do's"!  To start things off my first self-talk of the day is "Self, you can do this!" 

Exodus 19

Human behavior baffles me.  I don't understand why we say one thing and do another or why we fight so hard to keep our agency and then misuse it.  Then there is the whole idea that we need boundaries, yet we spend a good portion of our lives trying to overcome, breakdown, or test the limits of these boundaries.  

Exodus 19 presents an interesting case of the boundaries conflict.  The Lord is going to set some interesting boundaries for the people of Israel:

Moral Boundaries (v 5)
"Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine:"

In other words, the Lord is saying: I am going to give you some rules and we are going to make some promises, if you obey these rules and keep your promises, then you will reap the blessings of being a most treasured people to me.  The Lord uses very clear language when He gives us moral boundaries, the 'if' and 'then' statements in the scriptures state the expectations and the resulting consequences with simple clarity.

Why do we need moral boundaries? 
When my children were very young I read a lot of parenting books, and setting boundaries was one of the top areas of discussion.  One statement about setting boundaries really stuck with me:  Appropriate boundaries create integrity.  There is a lot of wisdom in those four words.  These are the words that would come into my mind whenever there was a temper tantrum or later in the teen years, heated discussions, about why we had set certain boundaries.  Integrity is an important characteristic and worth the battles with my kids.  The Lord knows this statement is true and so He sets boundaries for His children as part of our preparation to be in His presence.

Physical Boundaries (v 10, 11, 12)

In the Lord's preparation of His people to hear His voice in the cloud on the mount, He gives them some physical boundaries that they will need to meet:

-Sanctify themselves and wash their clothes (v 10).  Clean themselves both inside and out.  Remember "no unclean thing can dwell with God or they risk being cast off forever" (1 Ne 10:21)

-A time limit of three days to prepare (v 11). The Lord lets them know that He is coming in three days, if they want to be a part of this event then they need to be ready for it. Time limits are essential in evaluating a person's commitment to something and their willingness to obey.  Not being prepared in some cases can have eternal consequences.

-A warning not to go up into the mount, or touch the border of it (v 12).  The Lord is prepared to let the people hear Him if they prepare themselves, but going up the mount suggests that the people are trying to see Him which is outside the boundaries He has set.  He is very clear that if they try to do this, they will perish.

If you look at these boundaries from God's perspective you can see that the physical boundaries are given to protect us.  Edwin Louis Cole makes a great statement about this:

Boundaries are to protect life, not to limit pleasures.

 

If the Israelites wanted the pleasure of hearing the Lord's voice, then they needed to function within the physical boundaries or it would result in death. 

 

We use physical boundaries all the time in our lives, especially when we are the caretaker of another person.  We don't let our children play in the middle of a busy street, we place special locks on the doors to keep them away from poisons, and we even monitor the toys they play with to make sure they are age appropriate.  We set personal boundaries to protect ourselves from emotional and physical harm all the time.  Setting physical boundaries is the Lord doing what any good parent would do, protecting their child! 

Boundaries and Agency

In the Torah, God says, “There are things I want you to say yes to, and other things I want you to say no to.”

I really like that outlook. I cannot count how many times I have focused solely on the 'no's' in my life!  I look back on my childhood, especially the teen years, and think of all the time I wasted pushing the boundaries because I felt like my agency was being taken away.  Oh the curse of immaturity!  If only I had recognized that I had my agency the whole time, I was just choosing to use it in the wrong ways!

 

The Israelites are the same way, there will be many that will try to push the boundaries. The Lord will send Moses to warn them again that to cross the boundaries will cause them to perish (v 21).  It will take years of the Lord teaching the Israelites to live within the boundaries He sets, in order for them to reach the promise land.  They too need to mature spiritually before they can understand that God does not take away our agency, He chooses to teach us with opportunities to accept the "yes's" or the "no's".  Boundaries are just one more way He chooses to show His love for us.