The Power of Healthy Boundaries :: [Ep. 255]

The Power of Healthy Boundaries :: [Ep. 255]

Navigating the complexities of marriage demands a deeper understanding of boundaries and accountability. This VowsToKeep Marriage Podcast episode  examines the isolation many couples experience and provides practical insights on establishing protective and wise boundaries that can restore and strengthen your marriage relationship. 

In this episode we will: 
• Explore the significance of effective mentors in marriage 
• Redefine boundaries from a biblical perspective 
• Highlight protective boundaries for healthy relationships 
• Examine the role of generosity in fostering a vibrant marriage 
• Suggest practical steps for open communication 
• Encourage proactive discipleship and accountability

We hope you will join us and learn more to help you build a healthier marriage!

Chapters

• 0:03 Developing Healthy Biblical Marriages
• 10:18 Establishing Healthy Marital Boundaries
• 22:52 Supporting Hurting Marriages Through Truth

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Welcome to Vows to Keep Radio with David and Tracy Sellers. Our mission is to help couples develop biblically healthy marriages through the application of God's Word and a deeper relationship with Him. We desire to help you and your spouse grow closer to each other and closer to the heart of God's design for your marriage. Now here's David and Tracy with today's broadcast.

Speaker 2: 0:27

Hey, we are David and Tracy Sellers.

Speaker 3: 0:28

And, like you, we've made vows to keep. I got a call from a man named Frank recently. Frank's marriage was ending and no one knew it. Things look fine to most of our friends, he said the kids they probably knew things weren't good, but no one expected an agreement for divorce to be the actual state of the state. Frank's question for me was this how do I tell people? Should I even tell people? Should I let people get that close to me? What are the boundaries I need to have from all these people who think that they know me? Because this is going to get awkward.

Speaker 2: 0:59

Implying that they really didn't know him.

Speaker 3: 1:02

Exactly. Frank was asking the right questions, but six months too late. Today we're going to talk about boundaries and when, coupled with biblically-based goals for generosity, we see people who desire accountability, questions that they want to have asked to verify that they're on course. Today, in part six on how to help a hurting marriage, we're going to be looking at boundaries and the biblical ties to freely giving.

Speaker 2: 1:29

David and I often sit down across the table from a couple, discipling them in God's words so they can grow in their marriage, and I would say about 80 to 90% of the couples that we work with come to us in a place of isolation, and what we've learned over the years is that isolation is the enemy's playground. God has put us in the body of Christ for a reason to fulfill our role, to encourage one another to walk next to each other. But there's lots of reasons we can talk ourselves out of going to someone for help. We isolate because, hey, we think not everyone has my best interest in mind. Some people are going to someone for help.

Speaker 2: 2:06

We isolate because, hey, we think not everyone has my best interest in mind. Some people are going to gossip about what I tell them. Some people might even slander me or tear me down or make me feel stupid. We isolate because we tell ourselves, hey, I don't want to burden someone else with my problems. I isolate because sometimes I just don't want to be known. It'll be too embarrassing or too revealing, and being known is going to require change on my part, change I'm not willing or I'm not ready to make.

Speaker 3: 2:33

That's why someone comes to you like Frank to address that which is happening in that isolation. Now the person coming might not even know that that's actually why they're coming. The long-term pains of the isolation in their marriage has finally birthed a desire to be open for change. The embarrassment risk is overshadowed finally by really wanting to know how do we do something different? Is it possible we could be doing better? It all starts by not being isolated. Biblically speaking, we need each other. Biblically speaking, this is where accountability has opportunity. But in this precious moment when you want to help a hurting marriage, we shouldn't let our opinion be submitted as gospel in someone else's lives. We need to use the word of God as it was intended.

Speaker 2: 3:21

I know that if I'm going to be used by God in someone's life, I want to be qualified for that position. How about you? I want to do it effectively and effective accountability partners, effective leaders, effective mentors are going to have certain qualifications, and scripture actually talks about that.

Speaker 3: 3:38

So if you're like us and you want to help a hurting marriage, you need to care about the things we're going to be talking about today. As you look to be this kind of person, you need to also consider this who is mentoring you? In fact, to this point, it's always worth asking when someone comes with a hurting marriage, who, besides me, is actually speaking into your life? Who knows you well enough to really know what's happening? I'm not asking you to set up some exclusive relationship with this person In fact, I'd say that's playing with fire but we do always want to ask them to help them vet out the influences that are in their life.

Speaker 3: 4:12

Are the people that are around you speaking into your life, speaking from a position of godliness or worldliness? And, my friend, you need to do the same. So what makes an effective accountability partner? I want you to think about this. Like you would maybe evaluate the validity of someone you're interviewing for a new job, or maybe how you'd determine the value of one house over another house that you'd consider buying, we're looking for how you'd measure and then make that choice, not just the end result. When it comes to being a biblical mentor, it's not about putting your name out there and saying, hey, I'm willing to help. I'm looking for you to list the qualities of a person prepared to speak into another person's life.

Speaker 2: 4:54

If you were to go out there today and do an internet search for qualities for a mentor, you would come up with a list something like this A good listener, someone who's willing to be a sounding board, someone who's flexible and values diversity of perspectives. They need to be knowledgeable, nonjudgmental, able to give constructive feedback and willing to devote their time to developing others. You're probably nodding your head to all of these.

Speaker 3: 5:18

Let's take that to the next level. What does Scripture say would identify someone as a mentor or a leader? We could go look in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1, where Paul actually lists out these qualifications and qualities. Now, a lot of this is written to church leadership, but I think these qualities really speak highly of someone who would serve as a mentor as well, and we'll give kind of the Reader's Digest condensed version here. As I'm talking about those, though, I want you to give yourself a little bit of a mental checklist here. Do I meet that qualification or do I not meet that qualification? The first one is to be someone who's well-established in the faith, not someone who's just come to Christ recently. A mentor must also be a person of good reputation and above reproach.

Speaker 2: 6:03

You can definitely see there's some lifestyle elements in here, like being faithful to their spouse In their lives. Do they have good habits? Are they self-controlled? Are they honest? Do they have authenticity? Do they live their lives with integrity? Are they the same person behind closed doors as they are out in public? Do they hold their lives up to the mirror of God's word?

Speaker 3: 6:27

A mentor obviously must be prepared to teach others. They need to be someone who is gentle and gracious, not someone who is full of violence or anger or quarrelsome, and certainly someone who's not full of the love of this world looking after material possessions or money. And finally, when I look at the list of qualifications that Paul gives us, a mentor must be a mentor at home, first and foremost. Hopefully, this is what we're all aspiring to be for a friend who needs a place to turn, but I hope, even more importantly than that, you're aspiring for that inside your own marriage. This takes a very close relationship, though.

Speaker 2: 7:04

You may not even know it right now, but you probably are a mentor to someone and your job as a mentor, as someone who's discipling another person to become closer to Christ for their lives, to reflect that your job is to show God's boundaries to them, to help them see that in God's word, and you're to be a part of their accountability.

Speaker 3: 7:23

Tracy, you just used a scary word boundary. What is a boundary? I heard one woman say boundaries are the things that he does which make me feel like I'm going to go absolutely crazy. That's when I know he's crossed them Things I've told him hundreds of times and now I just feel like I'm in babysitter mode. Well, I'm here to tell you those are not the boundaries we're talking about. We're not talking about the laws that I want to force on others.

Speaker 3: 7:49

So listen carefully today as we redefine boundaries. Boundaries are instructions that God has blessed us with to protect our heart and our marriage. Boundaries are something that, to a world that doesn't know God, feel really bad. They feel like loss. It's all the things that we want to do and are actually encouraged to do. In the state of our culture today. God just seems to want to rain on our parade. That's how people view the kind of boundaries we're talking about. It's all the you know, thou shall nots. Why shouldn't I have sex before marriage? Why is that bad? If I look in this world today and I look at the amount of abortions, of unborn babies, I look at the ties we see between people who are failing to co-parent because they don't even want to live together anymore. It's not two people working together. It's two people running away from each other with a confused child tethered between them.

Speaker 3: 8:44

In marriage, god's boundaries actually enable generosity. God's word implies that when we haven't burned out on what we'll never fulfill, we will actually have an excess to freely give. What will? I want to repeat that. I want to make sure you hear what I'm saying. In marriage, boundaries enable generosity. God's word is basically saying to us when we haven't burned out on what we'll never fulfill in this world, we will actually have excess to freely give. What will?

Speaker 3: 9:15

An analogy I sometimes use when talking about boundaries is like a gas gauge in your car. You know that, one that dings at you when the low fuel light comes on, a self-defined warning light that comes on in your brain when you've not kept enough gas. In your spouse's tank, for example, there's a range. Right, there is a range on the fuel gauge. Some of us cruise around on E and some of us never let it get below three-quarters of a tank. What I'm asking you to consider today, as we talk about boundaries, is this could you watch your spouse's gas gauge for them? How do I do that? Well, what you need to do is pay attention to the boundaries that God would actually have defined not necessarily your spouse, but what would God ask you to do for your spouse? And then I try to empower people that keep me accountable in the specific ways I need it to take care of Tracy's need to be who God's equipped me to be inside this marriage.

Speaker 2: 10:09

I think the gas gauge analogy is really good, because we can look at the fruit of our marriage and see that we might be running on low. We might need to be pouring more into our marriage. There might be some things that are not running right in our engine that need some attention. But another way I'd like to look at it is if you've ever gone bowling and they say, hey, do you want me to put up the bumpers on the side of the lane? I humbly have to say yes to that sometimes, because I know my goal is to throw the ball, get it all the way down to the end and knock down all those pins.

Speaker 2: 10:40

But I know that I'm not the best bowler. So the bumpers the bowling bumpers come up and they help me stay on course for my goal. We can look at this word boundaries and think of them as bumpers as well. What is going to help me stay on course for the mission of my life and marriage? Where do I tend to get out of bounds? Where do I go in the gutter and what do I bounce off of to know and protect me from those consequences?

Speaker 3: 11:07

As someone who wants to help a hurting marriage. The balance for you is not being someone who's an onlooker as someone bowls their 28th gutter ball. We're not here to be the jury. But I want to point this out and I want you to hear me really clearly. If you want to help a hurting marriage, it's not loving to watch someone be broken, to be struggling, and for you to do nothing. When we're in a state of brokenness, we see nothing but problems. We see no answers at all. But God's word and the boundaries it provides are a great place to start In marriage. The boundaries enable us to protect the sacredness of our marriage. It keeps us far from anything that could hurt our marriage relationship. In a minute we're going to cover some super practical examples of that.

Speaker 2: 11:49

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Speaker 3: 12:22

To do this topic justice, I feel like we need to look at God's Word, at the very first boundary we see Him give. I turn to Genesis 2, verse 15 is where I'm going to start. It says the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man You're free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. When you eat from it you're going to die. Bad things are coming. So I want you to take quick notice of something. God actually made man and gave the warning to man about this tree.

Speaker 2: 12:56

Continuing right on the next verse, verse 18, the Lord, god, said it is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him. You'll notice here there's no Eve yet Do you hear God's heart?

Speaker 3: 13:08

God knows the consequences that comes with such knowledge, and in love, he sets up boundaries for Adam and Eve to protect them, to keep them in the freedom that they are enjoying. And God has given us boundaries in our lives as well. It's not to trap us, not to hold us back, but to give us the greatest blessing, the greatest liberty we could ever imagine. And when we live as we want in this supposed freedom of our sin, it is then when we're actually truly entangled. We're held within the power of death's grip. It's a spiritual death I'm talking about, but the real chains are there that bind us. So what was Adam and Eve's boundary? Well, they had one tree that they couldn't eat from. But why would that be? God loved him that much. So we shouldn't be surprised that this is actually where Satan's very first attack comes in the world, on Eve, in the form of assaulting the only boundary that God had set.

Speaker 2: 14:07

Satan says in Genesis 3.1, did God really say you must not eat from any tree in the garden? The woman engages in conversation with the enemy here. She says well, we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say that we can't eat from that tree, the one that's in the middle. If we touch it we're going to die. And Satan says hey, you're not certainly going to die. There's something here that God is trying to hide from you, he's trying to withhold from you. He knows that when you eat it, that your eyes are going to be open and you're going to be like him. You're going to know good and evil.

Speaker 3: 14:41

So clearly Adam and Eve had talked. Satan's enticing lies then still sound like the same kind of attacks we hear today. Did God really say you shouldn't have sex before marriage? I mean Satan's asking the questions to cast the doubt. Who says it should be wrong, and how could it be wrong when it looks and seems so good to all of us? What are God's motives? What is God withholding? Does God want you to miss out on knowledge or pleasure? This is the game Satan still plays today, but we want to make this super clear. Not only have we experienced this ourselves, but you can too. Living within the freedom of God's boundaries doesn't mean the absence of good things. In fact, just the opposite.

Speaker 2: 15:24

God sets before us life and death. That's what his word says, and we see more good news about choosing life in Romans, chapter 8. For the power of the life-giving spirit has freed me from the vicious circle of sin and death. When we believe in Jesus Christ as our Savior, he's transferred us from the kingdom of darkness into his marvelous light. In effect, he gives us new boundaries in this new life we have in Christ, boundaries that give us the ultimate freedom. But a few steps into our Christian walk, we begin to believe the enemy's lies again. Walk we begin to believe the enemy's lies again. And often Satan seeks to desensitize us, little by little. The harmfulness of impurity, or lies that we slowly begin to believe, or excuses that we make for what we would consider to be a quote-unquote small sin. It doesn't all happen all at once. He gets us off into the gutter little by little, one step at a time.

Speaker 3: 16:19

The truth is, God's boundaries are evidence of his goodness. It's his desire to protect you and I from some very painful consequences.

Speaker 2: 16:28

Now let's take some time to get really practical about what these boundaries look like in real life. We're going to give them in two different categories boundaries that are giving and boundaries that are protection. Let's talk about a protective boundary first in the area of finances. Sit down and have a chat with your spouse about spending limits, about credit cards, about current debt and how to honor God with your money. Seek God's word together. It's got a lot to say on this and those boundaries are awesome and they're going to set you up for success. That is a protective boundary that is healthy for your relationship. Here's a protective boundary around technology. Have the same passwords and know each other's cell phone passcodes Openly. Allow your spouse to review your text messages anytime, anywhere and agree to not texting people of the opposite sex and if you have to it's a teacher, it's someone in your church let your spouse know. Put them on that group thread.

Speaker 2: 17:31

A giving boundary in my own life is how I'm using my time. Psalm 90, verse 12, says teach us to number our days and to recognize how few they are. Help us to spend them as we should. If I look at a pie graph of my day and I separate it out of how I've spent my time. That tells me where my priorities are, and I can see a lot of times I'm out of whack I'm giving too much time to a certain thing and not enough time to invest in my relationship. That is a giving boundary I can put in my life, check how much time I've spent on my cell phone and adjust as needed. The same thing goes for how we spend our time at our jobs and how we spend our time in other commitments. Consider how our priorities line up with what God's word tells us they should be, and let's adjust accordingly so we can be generously giving to our spouse.

Speaker 3: 18:27

And for us that means neither of us being alone with someone of the opposite sex. It also means the movies, the books, the magazines that we read all are things that we mutually agree are something that is going to glorify God and protect our marriage. It's absolute purity. I have the freedom in our marriage to confess sexual temptation very early on. Tracy makes it safe to have that kind of conversation, and vice versa. The goal is to keep the marriage bed pure, just like God's word talks about, and the amazing part is that these boundaries are not only protective but they are giving. If I come to her and the gas gauge is on empty, she's not judgmental, she's generous and it's all about open communication, accountability and godly change.

Speaker 2: 19:13

So what are the boundaries that you have in your marriage? And maybe it's time to start thinking about those bumpers on the side of the lane. No-transcript.

Speaker 3: 19:26

With this background. When you go to meet with someone, you want to have this conversation. Many people are in the situation that they're in because they don't have accountability. Even coming to you, they might not even really want to be known, they just sometimes want to vent or gain an ally, but what they need is fellowship, they need discipleship, they need to be authentic, they need to come out of the darkness and the isolation that it provides.

Speaker 3: 19:53

So, as you think about how to prepare yourself, on how to help a hurting marriage, you want to make sure that you take time to pray about boundaries with them, to give them the homework to write down the boundaries that they see that they personally need and why. Then you want to challenge them to make sure they back up every boundary with some scripture that substantiates the fact that God is the real originator behind this boundary. Then I'd ask them to formulate a series of practical questions that they can arm you with as their accountability partner to ask them. Show your willingness to be transparent, of course, making this a two-way street on any subjects that you need accountability for. At the end of the day, what we don't want to do is encourage people to be like Pharisees. You see, the Pharisees in God's word give us this perfect example of people that reduces everything down to being doable on a human level. We can easily get to where we create a behavioral standard that places no demand on the heart, no reliance on Christ.

Speaker 2: 21:03

As we wrap up today here on Vows to Keep Radio, we're going to talk a little bit more about generosity. It's the other side of the coin of what we're talking about today. Jesus tells us it is more blessed to give than to receive. In Luke 6, 38 he says give and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be poured into your lap, for with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.

Speaker 2: 21:29

Too many spouses are running on empty because we just give one drop at a time. We give only when we need something. Back In Proverbs 11, it says One gives freely yet grows all the richer. Another withholds what he should give and only suffers want. Whoever brings blessing will be enriched, and one who waters will himself be watered. When we live within sight of God's boundaries, life is extravagant. This is God's economy. We draw these boundaries to be obedient to God's word and all of a sudden we find we have so much to give. When we try to go outside of God's boundaries, we find we have no energy to give to our spouse. We have no time to give to them. The margin is gone. So when you meet with someone, ask the question do you see areas that you need to give your spouse, give your children that you are withholding from them?

Speaker 3: 22:24

When you meet with someone, ask the question where have you made the gifts that God has given to you to give to your spouse? Where have you made the gifts that God has given to you to give to your spouse? Where have you made them conditional? That's a great homework question, one that you don't want to just have them flippantly answer. You want to have them spend time and write down that answer. Where do you need to be generous and why? And then again, as I said before, make sure they back it up with scripture.

Speaker 3: 22:52

When your goal is to help a hurting marriage, it is important for you to consider James, chapter 2.

Speaker 3: 22:57

It says suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him hey, go, I wish you well, keep warm and stay well fed, but does nothing about his needs, what good is it To help a hurting marriage? You need to understand the discipleship role that God is placing you in. Now is the time where, on a very practical level, you get involved in someone else's life. Now is the time that you ask the questions that help them to see, help them to question the choices they've been making, the things that help them to see. Help them to question the choices they've been making, the things that don't glorify God, the things that create failures inside of marriages. Now's the time to share truth with them, truth that is proven out through your own life, truth that shows that God's boundaries aren't something that withholds His goodness from us, something that withholds pleasure and freedom from us, but rather His boundaries are something that gives pleasure, that gives freely, with reckless abandon, a love that builds a marriage to health again.

Speaker 2: 24:04

Join us right here next week on Vows to Keep Radio, as we continue in this series how to Help a Hurting Marriage. On Vows to Keep Radio, as we continue in this series how to Help a Hurting Marriage.

Speaker 1: 24:13

Vows to Keep is supported by a team which includes biblical coaches, writers and pastoral advisors. If you have a desire to serve marriages in your community, we would love to hear from you. Vows to Keep is a not-for-profit marriage ministry designed to bring God's encouraging truth to the marriages of our area. As a not for profit organization, our commitment to Christlike marriages includes providing much needed services, regardless of a couple's financial ability to offset the cost of Vows to Keep operations. If you are unable to donate your time or abilities, but would like to help support Vows to Keep financially, visit VowsToKeepcom and click on the donate link. This program is sponsored by Vows to Keep of Zanesfield, ohio.