The Power of Wise Boundaries

We humans are always temped to either become legalistic or lawless. We can't seem to get the wisdom of balance. The Faith offers to train us how to discern the wise path.

What do you call a river with no banks?

A flood.

What do you call a fire with no fireplace?

A wildfire.

Let’s face it, there is a valid and essential reason many roads have guardrails in certain dangerous spots along the route. Sometimes, you need boundaries to navigate safely.

If that’s true on roadways, it’s also true in our everyday lives. We need guidelines and boundaries so that we know when we are in a dangerous spot in our lives. To have healthy relationships, we need boundaries so that we don’t fall into a co-dependent situation.

Most people realize this, but too many of us fail to take responsibility for appreciating the boundaries God has revealed to us throughout the centuries.

And because of this, we have chaos in society.

However, the challenge of discernment lies in knowing when boundaries are healthy and when they’ve become unhealthy. The humility and genius of the Faith offer us a disciplined path to discern the difference.

Look at our lesson today in Galatians 3:23-29; 4:1-5:

Brethren, before faith came, we were confined under the law, kept under restraint until faith should be revealed. So that the law was our custodian until Christ came, that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a custodian; for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise. I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no better than a slave, though he is the owner of all the estate; but he is under guardians and trustees until the date set by the father. So with us; when we were children, we were slaves to the elemental spirits of the universe. But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.

So, St. Paul is trying to get these Galatians, most of whom were not raised in Jewish homes, not to buy into the heresy that they had to be Jewish before they could be Christian.

It’s kind of like the false notion that you have to be Greek, or Russian, or Serbian, or Romanian, or (fill in the blank of your favorite ethnicity) before you can become Orthodox. That notion is, has always been, and will forever be, false.

And yet…

St. Paul refuses to call the Jewish practices of the Law that had actually become second nature to the Jews, bad.

In fact, St. Paul insists that the Law, the ritual rules, and regulations, were our “custodians” until Christ came.

This means that the “rules and regulations” serve a vital purpose in our maturity and development, and will always do so.

There is a great benefit in the humble honesty of realizing you need boundaries, not just to keep you safe (that’s too small a motivation to produce anything else but slavery) but to train your inner self to recognize the dangers in life when they come.

Most of the biggest mistakes in my life have come when I was asleep to the “cliffs” of my own intoxicated actions, devoid of the wisdom of maturity. I bet you can see that in your life as well. Untamed passions and undisciplined desires are always at the root of my greatest struggles. Look through your own life at the spots where you’ve gone down the wrong road, and I wager you will find the same to be true in your own life!

So, the purpose of the “rules and regs” is to train you, form you, and teach you to recognize when your passions are out of control.

They serve as the “custodian” until we grow up enough to value our relationship with Jesus ABOVE our own immediate desires! And that “grown-up” place isn’t some “magic moment” when “poof” “I’m saved” as much as it is a day-by-day choosing, from my freedom, to realize the treasure the Faith gives me in giving me, Jesus!