We all have them: people and institutions that
threaten or challenge us—not physically—but spiritually, ideologically,
morally and behaviorally. We may feel a deep need to control or set boundaries
around all interactions with these folks, resulting in a sense of dread every
time we even think of their presence in our, or our children’s, lives.
I believe it is best if we turn to Jesus to establish His
authority in these relationships.
The setting of healthy boundaries around myself and my children
in order to ward off these encroachments has been a legitimate and worthwhile—albeit
often excruciating—task, one that has grasped at every fiber of God’s grace
while walking the fine line of influences I will allow or disallow into every
stage of my, and my kids’, lives. It was crucial that I listen for God’s
ordaining stamp of approval on all limits set.
The best way I can illustrate this comes from one of the
biggest challenges I faced after becoming a saved Christian fifteen years ago.
As someone who has been in the mental, emotional and spiritual recovery of
having relied on alcohol and New Age spirituality for 21 years, I was faced
with the task of breaking the chain of alcoholism and empty religion forged and
handed down by previous generations and institutions.
Under no circumstances were my husband and I going to pass
the baton of drinking and secular humanist religious dogma onto our children
via the influence of those same people and institutions that had taught and
endorsed it to us. And so after becoming Christians, we carefully orchestrated,
as much as possible, our family’s exposure to that influence which was so
disabling in my and my husband’s lives.
Now, fifteen years into not only my sobriety but my being
born again in Christ, and my two sons now adults and married, I have been
sitting with God to take stock of where we are on this boundary setting. And
God, in His tender mercy, is gently taking me to that next phase of
sanctification in which, although He continues to give total peace regarding
the past fulfillment of being gatekeeper and leader (along with my husband) of
our household, there is now a bend in the stream He is calling me to navigate.
At this juncture, as in the past, I am to rely on God and
prayer; the difference being that prayer will now take more and more the place
of my doing the physical and mental work of setting personal and family
boundaries.
Prayer alone is increasingly taking the place of God’s past
call to be a physical protector of my family. In the past, I was in obedience
to God in managing the negative influences. Now, I am being called to obedience
to a diminished role in that capacity, trusting that God will guard the
spiritual and emotional gains made by past obedience.
In essence, it’s a hand-off: God has said “well done” to the
raising of my children and the establishing of my marriage and household within
the confines of what He set for us through His guidance, and now He is saying
that, while the old influences still hold potential for damage, He will take it
from here. And that goes not only for my adult sons, but for my husband and me
as well, and the life we have established these last 15 years in the Lord.
I realize that this, in a way, is God’s confirmation that my
family and I have matured. We can stand in the face of situations and people we
might not have before. And so as we have grown stronger, God is shifting my
call.
This is both a challenge and a relief: a challenge because I
fully admit I am afraid of people and ideologies that would hijack everything I
believe in, have prayed for and watched God build on His foundation.
On the other hand, the balancing act of being in the world of extended family and
social and religious institutions that are at odds with a Christian trajectory,
but not of that world, has been
exhausting. And even though it has tested my faith and revealed my shortcomings in grace, I have nothing but gratitude
to God for His continual presence, comfort, assurance, guidance and forgiveness
through the entire process.
Whatever our nemeses, whatever threatens to dictate how we
think or live, and in spite of the pressures we face when it comes to choosing
faith and the Christian formation of our own person, family and marriage over
well-meaning but often lost institutions, friends and extended family, our obedience is always
to God’s
call for our ourselves, our marriages and our immediate families.
Our
duty is always to get our own house in order. And that almost always involves
instituting new perimeters, unapologetically but gracefully. And after we are faithful in that endeavor, we are sure to notice the nudge of God to next steps.
When I look back at every obstacle, threat and hindrance
that has attempted to derail my and my family from the sanctifying work of
Christ, I see God there supporting, protecting and equipping us to keep our
minds and hearts on Him.
And so I pray, imploring God to provide a right spirit in
order that I might be obedient to His fulfilling of this new call to let go of
the past call, trusting Him implicitly that He’s got this. Just like in the
past. Just like in the future. Just like always. God’s got this.
copyright Barb Harwood
"He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us," 2 Corinthians 1:10
“Then King David went in and sat before the LORD, and he
said: ‘Who am I, Sovereign LORD, and what is my family, that you have brought
me this far?” 2 Samuel 7:18
(see also 1 Chronicles 17:16).
“They confronted me in the day of my disaster, but the LORD
was my support. He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because
he delighted in me...
For I have kept the ways of the LORD; I am not guilty of
turning from my God.” Psalm 18:18-19, 21
