There are boundaries everywhere—and they are very important. You have boundaries too, even if you don’t know it. Good boundaries keep us safe and tell us what is and isn’t ours. Where we make our boundaries is a big part of deciding who we are and what we are and aren’t willing to put up with! When we do certain things, it leaves less time for others, which make other kinds of boundaries. Body boundaries are also very important because what we want to have happen to our bodies matters a lot.
(Parents, this is the ninth in a series designed to help kids deal with identity and gender confusion by showing them that no matter what they like or what they look like or what they are good at, they are still boys and girls. When we try to push kids into filling stereotypical roles, we’re often the ones creating the confusion that they are forced to find a way to live with. I do this without making any mention of sexuality whatsoever.)
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Hi! I’m Miss Tyler and welcome to another episode of Context for Kids where I teach you guys stuff most adults don’t even know. If this is your first time hearing or if you have missed anything, you can find all the episodes archived at contextforkids.podbean.com, which has them downloadable, or at contextforkids.com, where I have transcripts for readers or on my Context for Kids YouTube channel.
Today I am going to teach you about something that you maybe haven’t heard of before and that is the importance of boundaries. You may think of a boundary as the fence around your yard, or maybe the edges of the playground at school or the local park. A boundary tells us when one area ends and another area begins. Boundaries can be for protection, which can be a good thing, or they can be put up as a way to keep people separated, which can sometimes be a really bad thing. Whether a boundary is good or bad depends on the context. If you have ever visited someone in the hospital who was really sick, they have boundaries set up to keep out people who have a cold or the flu. Those boundaries protect the sick people from getting even sicker. That’s a smart boundary. About sixty years ago, it became illegal here in America to tell people who weren’t white that they weren’t allowed to sit in the same places as white people could—on buses and in schools and restaurants and bathrooms. And they were finally allowed to drink from the same water fountain. Those were evil boundaries. It made sense to them at the time because of segregation laws—they thought that white people were just too good to be with black people. Even in churches—can you believe it? It seems crazy to us now because we can see that we are all created equally in God’s image—and because God is spirit, He doesn’t have a skin color. Jesus did, he was brown skinned, probably like if you took everyone in the world and combined their skin color it would probably balance out to look something like Jesus’s skin. So, when those people set up those wicked boundaries, they would probably be making Jesus go to a different church and wouldn’t even sit down with Him for dinner. They thought Jesus was white, like them, but that just doesn’t make any sense when we think about where Jesus lived.
Even though some people have some messed up boundaries, good boundaries are still are important to our lives. They can keep us healthy and safe from danger, but they can also be used to hurt others. Boundaries can be helpful, harmless, or harmful. If you have allergies, then you have to create a boundary between yourself and certain things—some people need peanut and strawberry boundaries. Sometimes they can’t even touch those things, but with others it is enough of a boundary just to keep them away from their mouths. When someone is sick, we try to keep our distance as much as possible so that we won’t get sick too. Except for moms, of course, because when someone is sick we spend a heck of a lot more time with them. When my twins were really sick when they were kids, I would actually sleep in the same bed just so that I could hear them breathing or so if they had to throw up I would be there to clean it up and change the sheets. But if I wasn’t their mom, no way should I be sleeping in their bed with them. That would be weird. But I imagine with my grandkids it would be the same. I don’t have any grandkids but it’s a good guess.
There are things I hate to eat, and so I make a boundary to try to avoid eating those things. That’s a harmless boundary—but if I was starving to death, I bet I would eat them anyway. There are types of music that give me a headache or I just don’t enjoy—and so I program my radio so that those stations don’t play. You can learn about what I do and do not like by checking out my music and movie and tv boundaries, what I will and will not watch. There are religious books that I will and will not read depending on my own boundaries—my beliefs. There is only one God that I worship because my boundaries don’t allow for me to believe in all the gods of other religions. And those boundaries are just fine, as long as I don’t hate people who do like things that I don’t like or can’t have or think that I am somehow better than they are. Most times, what we do and do not like depends more on where and when we grew up than with our own personal taste. A lot of times, we mistakenly think we have made our own choices when we really just like what we grew up with and got used to. We like those things that make us feel more comfortable.
When I was in school, I was always in a particular grade, and not in two or three at the same time. When I was in eighth grade, I learned eighth grade subjects and not Kindergarten subjects. When I was in college, my major determined where my boundaries were for the classes I took—lots of Chemistry, Physics, and Math and not very much art or music. If I took too many art and music classes, it would have taken me forever to graduate! When my kids were in High School, they went to a technical careers school, which meant less math, science, English and history and a lot more computer programming and welding. Those were the boundaries that we chose together for what they would focus on. If you take music lessons or play sports, then those things create boundaries in your life—when you spend time on those there isn’t as much time for other things. If you go into the military (like the army, navy, air force, or marines), then they are going to really set some major boundaries on just about everything in your life. In fact, when you are in basic training, they will set boundaries on when and where and how long you sleep and exactly what you will and will not do when you are awake, and how you dress and what you eat and probably things I can’t even think of because I never did any of that. Those boundaries will make you a soldier instead of a civilian, like me.
Are you beginning to see how important boundaries are and how they decide who we are going to be? What if you joined a club that not just anyone can join? That can be a good thing or a bad thing. It is good to have places where men can just be with other men and women can just be with other women, as long as those places aren’t there to hurt other people or to exclude them from opportunities. But what about groups like the Klu Klux Klan or the Nation of Islam? Both groups will say that the skin color of their own members is superior to anyone else’s color. And they can even be violent, although it has always been easier for white supremacy groups to get away with killing people. Those groups are always wrong because they insult the image of God in people who look different and have different experiences, often because of how they look, but are otherwise exactly the same. The Body of Christ, all the people who love Jesus, are every different color under the rainbow and speak so many different languages and because God is spirit, we can’t represent Him unless we all do that together. We can’t love Jesus while rejecting people who are a different color, or come from a different country, or have different customs.
How about the boundaries we have—what/who do we keep in and what do we keep out. Who do we trust and who do we not trust? The worst boundaries are created from things that people have no control over and the best boundaries are created because of the things people do when they have choices. I wouldn’t want to only hang around with rich people, because some rich people are cruel and untrustworthy—just like poor people. Or if I only wanted to be with people I thought were pretty enough or athletic enough or smart enough. Problem with those kinds of groups is that they have what are called very shallow standards—because none of those things tell us how much like Jesus someone is. The people I love to hang around and whom I trust are the people who are most like Jesus. And if you read the Gospels, you will see that Jesus was willing to hang around with anyone who was willing to hang around with Him. The people who were poor, and uneducated, and sick, and all the other people that society thought were just worthless and embarrassing—Jesus sat right down and ate with them, or fed them, or healed them, or told them that the Kingdom of Heaven belonged to people like them! They were used to hearing that all those things were their own fault and that if they were good and righteous only good things would happen to them. Does that make any sense to you? It doesn’t make any sense to me and evidently it didn’t make any sense to Jesus either. In the book of Acts, Peter learned that God is no respecter of persons—which means that He doesn’t have the same standards that we have. Paul said God doesn’t care if a person is born a Jew or a Gentile, if they are rich or poor, or if they are enslaved or free. And those were a huge deal when Jesus lived with us.
Today, if Paul was to rewrite what he wrote about how God looks at us, He might say, “In Christ Jesus, there is no high class or low class, there is no black or white or brown or whatever, there is no attractive or unattractive, intelligent or unintelligent, famous or unknown—or whatever else we can think of.” It doesn’t mean that people aren’t all of those things—it just means that God couldn’t give a flying fig about them because that isn’t how He judges our lives. God doesn’t care about your fast ball but how much you look like Him in how you treat others. The famous people to God are those who love others the best. The rich people in God’s eyes are those who know Him best and teach others about Him. The beautiful people in God’s eyes are the ones who look the most like Jesus. And the really smart people are the ones who realize that brains aren’t enough and ask Him for wisdom instead, so that they know how God wants them to behave. All the things that we think are important, don’t really matter at all in God’s Kingdom. It’s an upside-down Kingdom. The least here will often be the greatest there and the greatest here will be the lowest there because God has the right standards while we are totally distracted by the wrong ones.
What about our bodies? Do we need body boundaries? You betcha! As much as possible, we need to stay away from people who hurt our bodies. We shouldn’t have friends who hurt us, or touch us where they shouldn’t be touching us. We should always be aware of how precious our own bodies are, and the bodies of other people, and be very careful about who we let get close to us, who can touch us, and where they can touch us. It isn’t for anyone else to decide if they get to touch you, that’s your decision because your body belongs to you. Sometimes, doctors will need to touch you to make sure you are okay. But if something makes you uncomfortable, your boundaries mean that you can say no! You can ask them to explain to you why they think they need to touch you and if you don’t like the answer, it’s okay for you to feel that way. Just because I meet you and I would like a hug doesn’t mean that you have to hug me! Your body belongs to you and only to you. Someday, you might get married and then your body will also belong to another person because it will be their job to care for you and your job to care for them—but never to hurt in any way. You will still be you and they can’t just do whatever they want because your body is still your body and you are the only person who has to live inside it. And the same for the person you marry, their body is for you to love even more than you love your own body. When we can trust one another like that, to always care and never hurt, it’s safe to share our bodies with them in ways that we can’t trust with anyone else.
When Jesus was arrested, and beaten, spit on, and crucified, His body boundaries were being invaded in the most terrible ways. No one was right to do that. When people tried to kill Paul with rocks, they were wrong. When people killed the prophets and when Cain killed Abel, they were not respecting boundaries. Our lives belong to God and when someone takes our life wrongly, they are stealing from God. And when we steal things, we are always stepping across boundaries and taking something from their side and bringing it over to our side. No matter what it is. If someone steals your bike, they are taking something from inside your boundaries (which include the things that belong to you) and putting it inside their boundaries. Like if you move your fence to make it look like you own more land by taking the land away from your neighbor.
Do not move a boundary marker (fence), and do not help yourself to the stuff of people who can’t defend themselves, for their Redeemer (God) is strong, and he will take their side against yours. (Pro 23:10-11, MTV (Miss Tyler Version))
Oh man, you do not want that. Boundaries are very important to God. Your boundaries are important to Him—He doesn’t want anyone hurting you or stealing from you. But everyone else’s boundaries are important to God too and He doesn’t want us doing evil things to anyone. No matter what. No matter if they are a different color or come from a different country or are a boy or a girl or ANYTHING. Not even if they are our enemies. It’s like Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, “You have heard people say, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who hurt you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven. Because he gives sunlight to the evil and the good, and sends rain to the righteous and the unrighteous (so they can both grow things and eat no matter if they are God’s friends or His enemies). If you love the people who love you, why should you be rewarded for that? Even criminals do that much, right? And if you are only kind to your brothers and sisters, what’s the big deal? Don’t even the people who hate God do the same? God wants you to love people the same way He does.” (Matt 5:43-48, MTV)
God has the right kind of boundaries and He has a lot of them, but what He doesn’t have are boundaries that keep people away from His love. As far as God is concerned, there are only two kinds of people—the people who love Him and the people who don’t. And He wants the people who love Him to always love Him but He also wants the love of the people who don’t even know about Him yet. God has the kinds of boundaries we should all have—flexible ones. Just like in our lives, sometimes people who are on the inside of our boundaries have to be pushed outside if they are not safe people to be around, if we can’t trust them. Just because someone is on the inside of our trust and friendship boundaries doesn’t mean they can do whatever they want. And we can’t just do whatever we want when we love God either. He tells us that we have to grow to love others too, and if we don’t behave in a loving way toward others it’s because we don’t really love God either. And on the flip side, just because someone starts out on the outside of our boundaries, doesn’t mean that we can’t let them come closer if they prove that they are safe people to be with.
Think of it like a social media account like Facebook. There are people who are in the friend zone, people who are not friends but can follow you, and people who are so dangerous to be around that you block them. Based on how people behave, we decide how close they can get, right? And sometimes, people who behave for a while suddenly get nasty and after trying to get along with them for a while and trying to be loving, we have to make a decision of how much access we want them to have to us and to what we are thinking. Maybe we unfriend them and make the posts we don’t want them to see only visible to people we trust, who are on our friend list. Maybe we still let them send private messages to us to give them a chance to apologize when they are safe to be around again because people do change sometimes. But what if they send threatening messages or harass us? Then we have to decide if we are going to make it so they can’t send messages at all anymore. And for the worst cases, sometimes we have to block them so they can’t see us or talk to us at all. I had to do that a few weeks ago with some people who are actually lying about me and trying very hard to hurt me. I can’t make them stop, but I can decide to keep them out of my life while they are being destructive. Things like that will always happen and only you can decide whether someone will be inside or outside of your trust boundaries. Choose very wisely, and be merciful and forgiving when you can, but make sure that you know where your boundaries are so that other people can know when they are going too far.
But, like God, just because someone is on the outside of your boundaries doesn’t mean that it is okay to hurt them. If they have committed a crime then call the police for sure, or get an adult to help you. But when God sends good things, He doesn’t just send them to the people who are behaving themselves. He is a loving God and so He blesses His Creation. He doesn’t starve the people who don’t love Him or who are mean to you, just like He won’t do that to you if you start behaving like a gooberhead. Just think what would happen if everyone who believes in Him was rich and everyone who didn’t was poor. What do you think would happen??? Everyone would believe and love Him but for entirely the wrong reasons. Did you know that’s what Satan said about Job? That the only reason Job loved God was because God gave Job so much stuff. Satan was telling God that He was having to buy Job’s love! But Job loved God no matter what he did or didn’t have. And so there are many poor people who love God with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength and who love their neighbors for all the right reasons and not because they are getting paid to do it. But there are plenty of terrible people out there who have a ton of money, talent, good looks, popularity, smarts, children, houses, or whatever not because they love God but just because they were born into the right family, or had the right genetics, or their bodies work better than others—but not because God loves them more. I am super smart, not because God loves me more but because God gave that to me so that I could teach you. All of our gifts are for others more than for ourselves, if we are trying to be perfect like God is perfect.
When Jesus was talking about being perfect in this way, it was all about how we treat our enemies. God doesn’t play favorites by only giving good things to people who are good. Neither should we. God also doesn’t go around smiting everyone who is being bad. We shouldn’t either. God’s boundaries are about justice and mercy, but mercy seems to win more often than not. Justice is important to God—and justice is a word that means caring about fairness, peace, and respect. Because God sees everything and knows everything, justice can look different to Him than to us. When we want to get revenge when someone hurts us, sometimes God sees the reason behind what happened and wants to guide that person into better decisions—and if we take revenge, the person who hurts us might never see that they were wrong. If we do something worse than they did, then they will probably just figure that we deserved whatever they did. So we have to be very careful, when someone messes with our boundaries, to be very careful about how we treat theirs. Because, you know, sometimes we mess with other people’s boundaries and we would want them to be kind to us so that we can see that we are wrong.
Sometimes, God uses the legal system to give justice, and so when a person commits a crime we need to leave it to them to deal with it instead of making things worse. When the legal system isn’t working, we have to be very careful and band together to change things so that we will have a more just world that is more fair. If we are truly loving our neighbors then we will treat their boundaries with the same respect that we treat our own. And so if they are being treated unfairly, we will say something and we will do something. Jesus said something when the powerful people were being cruel to the weak, and so did the prophets, and so did Moses, and so does God all over the Bible from beginning to end. Jesus was so concerned about justice that gave His life for it.
But without mercy, justice is a scary thing. If a rich man steals a loaf of bread from a poor man, leaving him hungry, it is not at all the same thing as a poor man stealing a loaf of bread from a rich man, because he is starving. Even though they are both stealing, their reasons are different. Even though they are both wrong, God looks at the poor man with mercy but will be furious with the rich man. After all, if God wasn’t merciful with us, if He always treated us how we deserve to be treated, we would all be in some super serious trouble and no one would live long enough to even be adults, right? God’s mercy boundary is huge, and if we are perfect, ours will be too.
I love you. I am praying for you. I hope you will spend time thinking about your boundaries, because you are important, and what you think and care about and feel are all important.