Healthy Boundaries

You're tuned into Made for Mondays with Justin Lester. Justin Lester is an average guy who refuses to let Mondays control him. Justin is a husband, dad, pastor, student, and Jesus follower. He's done a lot, he's learned a lot, and he wants to see you at your best. Let's win Mondays. Hey, Justin. What's up today?

Hey, everyone. Welcome into Made for Mondays. You're here with Justin, and we're going to jump into our time today. What I want to spend our time on today as we're sitting here in the middle of this COVID 19 as well, is I want to talk about healthy boundaries. Healthy, intentional boundaries. I want to begin with this quote from Patrick Lincolni in his book the Advantage, where he talks about organizational health and the secret to a sustainable organizational leadership. And he said this after two decades of working with CEOs and their teams of senior executives, I've become absolutely convinced that the seminal difference between successful companies and mediocre or unsuccessful ones has little if anything to do with what they know or how smart they are, but has everything to do with how healthy they are. Now, while he's talking about organizations, I believe the same principle applies to all of us as individuals. I think everything doesn't always come down to how smart we are, but it's how healthy we are and how intentional we are, how purposeful we are to keep that health at the best it possibly can be. I think one of the ways we can do that is through healthy, intentional boundaries. Boundaries, if you want to think about them, like Henry Cloud, the seminal thinker in Boundaries in the country right now, he sent the picture of looking at a map, and he said, as you look at a map, you see property lines. There's not an actual boundary or border up. There's not a wall built of concrete around every single house, but it's a property line that tells the city, this is how much proper this individual owns, that the money that I've invested owns that entire piece of property, that now there's a line around it. You cross that line, you're getting into a lot of places where now laws are enacted, where now my safe spaces are, where what I own is enacted, where insurance comes in because of what's behind or in front of that line. And boundaries for us in the world are those lines. You don't always see them. We're not walking around with concrete walls around us. But boundaries are these invisible lines that mark off that when you cross into a certain area of my space, that now this is my passions, my value, My purpose really begins to come out. Boundaries tell the world. Here's the principle, where they have access. Boundaries tell others where they have access. And there's a lot of different layers. There's your love layers, there's your friend layers. There's your enemy layers. There's. There's acquaintance heirs, and then there's just people that you see, strangers that are not allowed into certain spaces. What's happened, I believe, in the world that we're in right now is it as we go back all the way to the Bible, right? And we talk about sin and shame and guilt and shame. And if we go back to the story of Adam and Eve, we see the first boundaries that were really crossing when sin came into the world. When sin came into the world, the first thing they covered were, well, their genitalia, their sexual organs. They covered this out of shame because they saw that the most intimate places that people had were genitalia. Nowadays, I believe that when we see guilt and shame come into the world, the first thing that we cover our faces because we spend more time engaging online, engaging with one another, that we've now lost a sense of sexual intimacy, personal intimacy, and all of that. Because now I'll meet you there instead of. And then I'm scared of what you might know about me, what's in my head after. And so I want to talk about healthy boundaries, what it means to have healthy boundaries. And I can't get all the way into marriages and children and all of that. But I want us to see what is. How do you meet people first? How do people meet you first? Are you leading with. And what are you. Are you leading with your head? You leading with your hands? Are you leading with your sexual organs? Are you leading with your. Your knowledge? Are you leading with your success? Are you leading with your children? What are the things that you invite people to cross first? Those are the boundaries that are the weakest in our lives, but also the boundaries that we can solidify the easiest because we spend a lot of time with them, right? I want you to think about the places where people enter into your life. I want you to think about the places where people get close to you, where people get near you, where people can touch you, where people can get to know you. I want you to think about boundaries like this. Imagine you were driving your car down the street and some crazed psychotic driver next to you decided they were going to reach over from their car and try to drive your car, right? When we let people in too soon, we let people get too close to us, they begin to have too much control. Remember this, that when you let people get close to you into your home, they're visiting, they're not living in your home. Even your best relative, your mom, or even your dad that come to your house, when you invite them in, they're coming to your home not to live there, but to visit there. Because if we let people have permanent places in temporary positions, what happens is that they begin to dictate how we live. In essence, reaching out of their car into your car, telling you how to drive, but then jumping back into their car when they get you into an accident. Boundaries. Tell the world where they have access. Who has access to your mind, your spirit, your. Your body, your self talk, your self hatred, your self engagement. The way you love yourself, the way you don't like yourself. Who has access to the way you think? And then for those of you who are saved, who has access to the language you use when you pray? Boundaries. Here are four principles and four points of power I want to give you today. Number one, Only let in what you can handle, not what you hope to handle. Only let in what you can handle, not what you hope to handle. I'm personally very intentional with who I allow into my home. Everybody's not welcome into my home. There's some even the people I pastor. I don't allow a lot of people to come into my personal spaces. Here's why everybody cannot handle what I have in my personal space. And I don't feel like trying to handle everybody in my personal space. When we think about what you let into your personal space, everybody is not able to handle it. And you, especially you person who's going to be made for Monday, you cannot handle every single person in your space when you have to then ask them to leave. Only let in what you know you can handle. Let into your space, which you know you're able to handle. If there's certain things, certain language, certain places, certain individuals, certain things, certain ways to address if you know you cannot handle it, grow in private and then show that thing off in public. But don't let things into personal spaces that you're still trying to figure out that you just are not equipped to handle right now. Number two, I want to challenge you to protect your peace. Paul tells us this. He says, and the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will protect your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Work tirelessly to protect having peace, peace in your home, peace on your job, peace in your life. And if something threatens it, whether it's a television show or music or a thought or a book or some. Or people. Whatever it is, whatever comes in your life that stops you from having peace needs to be removed. Work tirelessly to protect your peace. Number three, value your future over someone's opinion. Value your future over someone's opinion. You know, I remember when I was growing up, I was so engaged and thoughtful about technology. And I remember when Twitter first came out. I was one of the first people in our school to begin using Twitter. It was lame, it was stupid, all of that. But there was something very interesting about technology and learning about qualitative and quantitative research and methods and all of that. And it helped me get to a lot of success. My first job in church was not actually a job that was based upon my ability to preach. My first job in a church was based upon my ability to market. And I was so consumed back in 2006, 2007, 2008 about my future that I had to take the negative opinions of people. I remember having pastors tell me it was stupid to think about technology in church. People are never going to watch church on television. People are never going to watch church online. These Facebook things are fads. They're all going to die. But because I valued my future overvaluing someone's opinion about my future, my future is able to move forward. I want you to think about you when you think about your boundaries. Value who you are and value your future over the opinion of somebody else. Who's the person that has access for you to say no to your passions? Who's the person you've given entrance into your heart to make you turn the key off to when God is calling you to turn the key on? Value your future overvaluing the opinion of someone else. Because here's why they're not living your life. You're the one who has to go to sleep with the decisions that you've made, not the person who tells you you're not good enough for the decisions that you made. And thirdly, and finally, don't make Fourthly, and finally, excuse me, don't make permanent decisions on temporary problems. Don't make permanent decisions on temporary problems. I want you to consider the things you said yes to and consider the things you said no to. Because it was something that was very temporal. There are a lot of things in our lives that happen today, a lot of things in our lives that happened this week. But I want you, as you go into this week, do not make permanent decisions over something that happens Monday. I can think about the friendships that I've lost that I really wish I kept having because of some temporary conflict, some temporary things that are eventually going to pass over. But we made permanent decisions in our friendship over temporary situations. I want to challenge you with your boundaries as you go into this week. Do not make permanent, life changing, life altering decisions over temporary situations. You're gonna get through it. You're gonna move past it and for your own personal health and well being, value your future and value longevity over valuing the short term. Listen, let's say our affirmation together and that you can go on about your Mondays. I hope that this helps you and encourages you. Listen, you can have healthy boundaries and have firm boundaries and you can build and be bold with your boundaries. Let's say this together. Say I am me. I can be me. No one can stop me because I am me. Listen, you got this. You were made for Monday. Mondays do not own you. You own your Mondays. Now go tackle it. You're the best person to ever live. You have the best gift to ever then be given. And you are the greatest that the world doesn't even know about yet. Have a great day.

This has been Made for Mondays with Justin Lester. Be sure to follow Justin online at MrJlester and online at www.jluster.com. see you next week. Go win. You were made for this.