Boundaries. Most of us have a love/hate relationship with them.

Take the adolescent. He wants to test the boundaries. The teenager is not fond of them at all. College students think, “Hey! I’m out of the home. I can do what I want!” They want to discard or disregard boundaries. Many young adults and even older adults want nothing to do with them. F-R-E-E-D-O-M!! is their cry (tapping the inner William Wallace there). 🙂

But while boundaries are seen as confining and stifling and downright unnecessary, they actually are or can be a good thing. It used to be stove doors were not insulated against getting burnt.  When they got hot they got HOT. Ask my youngest brother. He was learning to walk when he got too close to the stove. He touched the stove (after being told constantly not to) and felt the burn on his hand. His reaction was to use the other hand to catch himself. Result= trip to the ER to have severely burnt hands wrapped like mittens. Fortunately, God answered prayers and his hands healed with no sign of burns or inability to use his hands. The boundary of “Don’t Touch!” was for a good reason.

But, our natural inclination is to kick against the boundary. Teens don’t like the rules mom and dad have established so their natural desire is to kick against it, or to see how much they can stretch it. Adults do the same thing. We eat what we know we shouldn’t, even though we know it is leading us down a bad road health-wise. That friendship/relationship needs to be checked. It is getting too intimate or too familiar. That financial arrangement is shady. Someone has said, “When you play with fire you either get burnt or smell like smoke.”

Reading Leviticus 14-15 this morning was almost mind-numbing. It was all about skin diseases and bodily discharges and contaminated/mildewed houses. Seriously? Two whole chapters on that? Yes indeed! And a quick look ahead tells me there is more of the same-prohibitions against eating blood and forbidden sexual practices and multiple other prohibitions. Or shall I say boundaries?  I don’t know all the whys and wherefores of these boundaries. I just know that they matter to God because I matter to Him. God is not setting these boundaries to be a killjoy but because He knows what is best and wants me to avoid heartache and sickness and even injury. These boundaries seem like minutia to me/us, but let’s not see them as that. Let’s see them as an act of a loving God who only want the best for his child.

Sort of like a parent with a child.