Daily Devotion
Scripture of the Day
The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; I have a goodly heritage. (
Psalm 16:6)
Reflection
Maybe because I teach “Boundary Awareness Training” to clergy and other ministry professionals, but I love this reminder that boundaries are pleasant. In America’s idolatry of freedom we, on occasion, sacrifice two important truths. First, our need for community, to be wedded to and bound up with concerns of the whole and not just our individual fantasy. Second, our need for limits, to know where I begin and where I end, where I can go and beyond which I should not explore. Freedom from tyranny is well and good; freedom for freedom’s sake is pointless. Freedom is not the goal; it is the methodology toward a greater harmony and a dignified compassion.
Prayer
God, which limits are of your design and which are of my own making? Differentiate for me the borders that give me definition and those that restrict my development. I do not want to be limited by my own fear or my hesitation to put in hard work. But I also do not want to be so unbounded that I trample on my neighbor’s garden unaware that I have stomped out life itself. Amen.