Love and Boundaries:

Not enemies, but Companions in Wisdom.

Journey with me to discover God's wisdom for loving well without losing ourselves.

Because God's love itself, is wise.

I'm here today, Dear Loved Ones, to reflect on something that has taken me years of wrestling. Wrestling through anger, sadness, anguish, heartache..., and pain.

Wresting for understanding.

For clarity.

For reason.

For guidance.

Wrestling with why.

With how.

And perhaps most of all...

With purpose.

Questions like...

• What am I responsible for?
• What is expected of me?
• What is mine to carry... and what isn't?
• What is God trying to teach me?
• How is He inviting me to grow?

Wrestling, Dear Loved Ones, with boundaries.

Learning what boundaries are and look like. That it's not just okay to have them, but healthy—a sign of maturity even. Also of respect. Respect of self and of others.

Scripture even points to the necessity and wisdom of establishing, protecting, and respecting boundaries.

It has been a deeply personal and challenging journey. One that has slowly revealed a beautiful truth to me: God is not only loving, He loves wisely.

That He doesn't simply teach love and wisdom—He models them both.

That God's wisdom is not restrictive—it is restorative.

Boundaries and Love are not exclusive, Dear Loved Ones.
Both require grace.
Both require discernment.

Love, Discernment, Grace, and Boundaries—all are taught throughout Scripture.

Isn't it interesting that the very God we often think of as limitless is also the One who chose to create a world filled with boundaries from the very beginning?

Boundaries between land and sea.

Between night and day.

Earth and sky.

Between the seasons.

In the Garden.

Even within Shabbat.

Perhaps boundaries have been part of God's design from the start...

Isn't it interesting that the God whose love knows no limits is also the One who established boundaries with Adam and Eve?
With Noah?
With His covenant people?
And all throughout Scripture?

What if boundaries are just one beautiful expression of God's Restorative Wisdom?

Somehow, somewhere along our journey, Dear Loved Ones, many of us learned to believe that love means saying yes.

Yes to one more request.
Yes to one more chance.
Yes to one more hurt.
Yes to one more disappointment.

To give unconditionally of ourselves.
So much so, we become depleted.

We've confused love with limitless availability.

Yet, as I am reading through, learning, studying, and applying Scripture, I don't see a God without boundaries.

I see a God of infinite love and wisdom.

A God who is not only merciful, but who set boundaries.

While God and Yeshua ask us to be kind, they also show and teach us the importance and holy wisdom of "no."
The importance of reflection.
Of restriction.

They reveal that love sometimes says "yes"... and sometimes faithfully says "no".

Throughout His earthly ministry, Yeshua repeatedly withdrew to be alone. To quiet, lonely places. He did this to restore Himself and commune with His Father through prayer and meditation.

Practicing separation from others and restricting access to Himself—even by those He loved most—is merely one example of boundaries by Yeshua.

This wasn't an exception in His life. It was His rhythm.

Even our Creator rested and gave us Shabbat.
A reminder that limits are not failures.
They are gifts.

Shabbat itself is a mitzvah—a commandment. One of the 613 commandments given to God's covenant people.

God didn't simply tell His people to work.
He also told them when to stop.
How to stop.
And why.

He didn't simply invite Israel to rest.
Shabbat isn't merely permission to do so.
In His wisdom, God calls His people to set apart time

It's a holy boundary.

One that establishes not only a covenantal relationship with, but also a holy rhythm for, His people.

Boundaries aren't always comfortable either.

Even, or most especially, for the one learning to set them.

Discomfort is part of the learning, growing, and changing process.
Aspects of a dynamic character, not a stagnant one.

Yet, isn't it interesting to discover that learning to set healthy, loving boundaries is something scripture encourages us to practice?

Examples from Scripture abound, something we will hopefully explore over time.

Learning how though, Dear Loved Ones, has been a struggle.

A hardship, a labour, 'growing pains", and an effort I'm still working through—and likely will 'till my dying breath. However, I am learning not only the importance of wrestling with such things, but how much opportunity lies within the struggle.

Perhaps that's one reason Jacob's story has come to mean so much to me the more I've grown to understand it.

Jacob wrestled, Dear Loved Ones.
Not simply with circumstances.

But with God.

And though he walked away with a limp, he also walked away with a blessing. With a deeper relationship with the Almighty, and even a new name!

The more I study Scripture, the more I realize Jacob's story isn't merely about struggle.

It's about transformation.

God lovingly transforms us through the very challenges that teach us why boundaries matter.

How beautiful is it, Dear Loved Ones, that God can use even disappointment, pain, suffering, and struggle to deepen our faith, shape our character, and draw us closer to Himself.

God's work is redemptive .

It makes me wonder, what does wisdom, shaped by the love of God, look like in ordinary life, and how do I apply it in my own?

What does God's wisdom teach us about love, boundaries, grace, and discernment?

For one. That repentance matters.
For another.
That forgiveness is not always freely given, and does not require relationship.

It has taken me many years to not only understand and accept that creating healthy distance is not the same as withholding love—or that sometimes it is the very thing that allows love to remain honest, peaceful, and free from enabling what is harmful—but to stop apologizing and defending my need to set boundaries.

God taught me that while it is important to establish boundaries...
...it is important to do so in and with love.

In Romans 12:18 Paul reignites what Old Testament/Hebrew Bible scriptures point towards, there is wisdom in boundaries, and boundaries require discernment.

If possible, so far as it depends on you, live in shalom with all people." (TLV)

After all, peace is not entirely within our control.

We are responsible for our faithfulness.

Not everyone else's response.

Boundaries, Dear Loved Ones, boundaries.

Not walls built from fear...
but expressions of wisdom.
Expressions of love.
Expressions of faithful discipleship.

My prayer, Beloved, is that we continue learning.

To love wisely.
To establish healthy boundaries.
To extend grace.
To grow in discernment.
To Trust in God's infinite wisdom.

To become more like the God whose love itself, is wise.

Thank you for reading and please remember to subscribe and share!

Please also keep in mind Dear Loved Ones, that boundaries are a practice.

Shalom!