Replacing Busyness with Boundaries

 

        It seems like everyone these days is talking about “setting boundaries.”

It’s all over my social media feeds, setting boundaries in all types of relationships- with your significant other, with your parents, with your in-laws, with your children, with your friends, with your coworkers and even your boss… It’s gotta make you wonder: is this just another new mental health fad, pushed by the “millennial snowflakes” who just need to “toughen up?”

First of all, I’m technically a millennial (though sometimes, I’m not a fan of being grouped in that generation). Second of all, I do not at all believe that the current generation needs to toughen up. I do believe there are people in our society- of all generations- who get too easily offended when someone simply disagrees with them or takes it personally when someone holds a different opinion than them. Neither of these things are cause for meltdown. They are just normal human existence where everyone’s different and everyone has different beliefs. I think we all need to learn how to respectfully disagree with one another, especially on social media.

Here’s what I truly believe about this idea that the current generation is a bunch of whiners who needs to “toughen up”- every generation before us was actually treated with very little respect, especially as children, creating a whole host of mental health issues and systemic problems where the next generation simple assumed “this is how it is” and just accepted some pretty horrific treatment. What we’re seeing now is mental health struggles that have become an epidemic in young adults, teenagers, and even children. Suicide rates are through the roof, not because people didn’t learn how to deal with adversity, but because they thought it was the only alternative to being treated so disrespectfully. And now we have a generation that’s saying, “NO MORE.” We’re standing up to the past and saying, “we will no longer allow humans to be treated with such little respect. Every human deserves dignity. Every human deserves kindness. We’re breaking the cycle.”

So is that cycle being broken with some newfangled idea like “boundaries”? Certainly not. To quote Lysa TerKeurst: “Boundaries are not just a good idea, they’re God’s idea.” You can find one of the very first pictures of them in Genesis 2, when God sets up a boundary for Adam: “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die” (Genesis 2:16b-17 NIV). God set this boundary for man’s protection, giving him freedom with just one limitation to keep him safe in his relationship with his Creator. So boundaries are not some new, millennial pseudo-psychology; they’re as old as creation itself.

One place where I really struggle to keep boundaries as a mom is in my schedule. This has been an issue for me for a while, and it has only grown in motherhood. I feel the need to be going, doing, busy, busy, busy. If I’m not, then I’m not really using my time wisely to be productive. For me, I think this also stems a little bit out of my anxiety from loss and infertility. During that season when we were trying so hard to have a baby, I filled our calendar with things to do- working out, social events with my girlfriends, trips to football games and visits with family. If I was busy, then I wasn’t thinking about my sadness and longing. My anxiety caused me to pack my schedule with distractions, attempting to fill the void. This just exacerbated my anxiety because I had very little time to myself to rest and to be with God. It was a never ending cycle.

God forced me to chill during pregnancy since the entire world was in the midst of a pandemic. I spent my entire first trimester at home, and even when the world started to open up, I didn’t want to go too many places and expose my unborn miracle to illness. You’d think that would have helped me replace my habit of overscheduling myself but you’d be wrong. Once my Rainbow Baby got big enough that it required more effort to entertain him, I started scheduling music, swim lessons, trips to the playground, family vacations, and more, to keep us busy. And while this is not entirely a distraction trying to fill a void, so much as it is an attempt to entertain a very energetic toddler, the result tends to be the same when there’s too much on the calendar: very little time to myself to rest and to be with God.

The first time the word “boundary” is used in Scripture is in Numbers 34:1-2 (NIV): “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Command the Israelites and say to them: “When you enter Canaan, the land that will be allotted to you as an inheritance is to have these boundaries…”’” This is as the Israelites are preparing to finally enter the Promised Land after 40 years of wandering in the desert due to their disobedience. God gives Moses boundaries for every side: north, south, east, and west, and then finishes his instructions by restating: “This will be your land, with its boundaries on every side” (Numbers 34:12 NIV). This verse in particular reminds me of the picture we see of God setting boundaries with Adam: there is freedom in the phrase, “This is your land,” but there is also a restriction to keep God’s people safe in their relationship with Him. Undoubtedly, the people dwelling outside those boundaries were pagan, worshiping many gods, and could expose God’s people to the temptation of wandering away from Him. They had already shown a tendency to do that.

The words “boundaries” or “boundary” are used 10 times in these 12 verses in the NIV of Numbers 34. There were many definitions for the phrase “according to its borders” (verse 2 NASB), but the ones that struck me were from the Gesenius’ Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon: “margin, limits.” The word for “borders” (verse 3 NASB) also includes “limits” as a definition, specifically for water, as well as “enclosed within boundary, barrier.” The idea of “limits” or “margin” is a true reminder that, as humans, there is literally only so much we can handle; there is a limit to our time, our resources, our energy. We must stay within that limit if we don’t want to suffer the consequences of overextending. The words “enclosed” and “barrier” create an image for me of what it takes for me to stay within my limits- I’m so stubborn that I better put up a metaphorical wall that I can’t cross easily, otherwise I will fall into old habits and run myself ragged.

Proverbs 8 is a beautiful picture of what is required to set good boundaries with our schedules- or anywhere else for that matter. This chapter of Proverbs is called “Wisdom’s Call” in the NIV (I bet you already know where this is headed!) and in it, Wisdom is the narrator, speaking directly to the reader. She asks the reader to choose her because she is “more precious than rubies” (verse 11a). She dwells with prudence, which means cautiousness, and possesses knowledge and discretion (verse 12). With her, we will find riches, honor, wealth, and prosperity (verse 18). She was brought forth as God’s first work (verse 22) and was formed at the very beginning (verse 23b). She was there “when he gave the sea its boundary, so the waters would not overstep his command” (verse 29a). She ends things by commanding the reader to listen to her instructions (verse 33a).

Besides the fact that my English teacher heart loves this stunning example of personification, this really is a great picture of the wisdom required for setting boundaries to eliminate the instinct for busyness in our lives. We must be cautious with what we give our time to and how much of it we give away. We must use discretion when deciding what we will say yes to and when we need to say no for our own good. And the only place we will get this kind of wisdom is from God! He created this knowledge before anything else, making sure every element of creation, from the waters to man, knew where His lines were so they would not overstep what He wants for them! We must ask God for help to access this wisdom, because it is one of the most precious things He can give us! When we do, we will find riches and wealth and prosperity- not in money but in the time we will have to rest, to invest in what is most important, and to spend time with Him.

The word used for “boundary” in verse 29 means, “something prescribed; prescribed portion; prescribed limit; an appointment of time, space, labor, usage; set time.” These definitions really speak to the boundaries needed in our schedules- God is prescribing only so much time, space, labor and usage of ourselves in our day-to-day lives. We must seek His wisdom to discern what that prescription is so that we can properly schedule ourselves within those boundaries and not overexert our abilities with our time and energy.

The word “boundaries” only appears in one place in the New Testament, and that is Acts 17. In this passage, Paul is waiting in Athens and becomes distressed by seeing all the idol worship among the people there. I’m already convicted by this- how often do we set things in our schedules as idols in our lives? When we run ourselves ragged, worshiping the very concept of “busyness,” we forget that our true worship, the most important use of our time, is with God.

Because of his distress, Paul starts trying to reason with the people about their idols and ends up being taken to Areopagus because of his “new and strange ideas.” When he comes before Areopagus, he preaches the Gospel, telling him and his court of how God doesn’t live in a temple made by human hands or need humans to serve Him anything; instead He made all humans from one man, marked out man’s appointed time in history and “the boundaries of their lands” (Acts 17:29b NIV). God did this so man would seek Him and the proof of that is in the resurrection of Jesus. When Areopagus and his people heard these teachings, some sneered but some because believers in Christ!

God made each of us to be in this place and this time in history. He appointed us to be right here so that we could answer His calling for us. Are we going to heed that calling, or are we going to use this time for busyness?

This only usage of the Greek word “horothesia” means “setting of boundaries, laying down limits.” In every passage, every definition we’ve looked at, it is really God who lays down the limits on us- if we go beyond them, we will ultimately feel it in our bodies, our minds, and our souls. So we have a choice:

We can lean into anxiety, keep pushing ourselves past the boundaries of our time, and overschedule a bunch of distractions in our days.

Or we can replace busyness with God’s boundaries to give ourselves the freedom to say “No” and maintain space in our schedules, so that we have the time we need to care for ourselves and our relationship with God. This is how we recapture our joy in our schedules! When we take the time to fill our own cups, then every part of our day will bring us joy, and instead of a bunch of distractions, we will find that each activity we schedule is an outpouring of our worship of God.