420. Celebrating God's Grace, Healthy Guardrails

God calls us to be the best version of ourselves. In order to do that, we need to have healthy guardrails in place to protect our hearts and minds. This is something that with the influences of society, can be challenging to do. It is vitally important that we surround ourselves with life-giving people who spur us on to be who God created us to be.  ***** Hello, and welcome to Celebrating God's Grace. This is Lisa Hathaway with Women World Leaders. And I'm so excited today to talk to you about a topic that has been something that I have worked on personally in my life and continue to do. I'm in graduate school for clinical and mental health counseling, and I'm counseling clients now. And it's something that comes up often in sessions, but it's also such a powerful, powerful thing personally for me, that I've had to work through. And that is the subject of boundaries or you can call them guardrails. And so I like to talk about guardrails and how important those are in our lives. Webster's Dictionary classifies guardrails as a railing guarding, usually against danger, or a barrier placed along the edge of a highway at dangerous points. So you think about a guardrail. I'm very visual. So I'm thinking about driving down the highway and these guardrails are keeping you from going off the cliff or going into a median or whatever the case may be. But the guardrails are there, and us in our life as protection, just the same as we, we have boundaries, and you hear that word boundaries a lot these days, and but it's so important. And one thing that I've really learned as that is not selfish, to place boundaries on your life, it's not selfish to say no. And, you know, I have three kids, three teenagers, and one is my daughter is a senior in high school, get ready to go to college. And we talk a lot about placing boundaries on things that are not life giving to us, and things that drain us. It's not healthy. God doesn't want us to be drained. When we have things we have to do, of course, there's things that are stressful to us, or things that take a lot of energy. But as long as they're not draining to us, you know, God wants us to do things with excellence and to do things with joy, and with the gifts that He has given us. And He wants us to be a light to others. That's part of being part of the kingdom. And a couple of subjects that I want to talk about as far as guardrails go is emotional mental guardrails as long as as along with relational guardrails. So relational guardrails is, you know, what I talked about, it's okay to say no, if it's if the person is harmful, or toxic, or the relationship you're in, it's okay to say that you need to be out of that relationship. It doesn't mean that you can't love that person. Does that mean that you can't be kind to that person, but it doesn't mean they have to be your best friend. And so I've experienced that in my life of I've had to literally walk away, which is so hard for me walk away from people that are not life giving to me, and that are toxic, or there's been betrayal or whatever the case may be, it's super important that we surround ourselves with people that spur us on spiritually and emotionally. And also, we are to seek wise counsel and to be involved with people that allow us in and challenge us for our walk with the Lord. And that's a big thing. You know, we want to be able to have hard conversations with people our friends are, of course we do we don't want to dwell in, in conflict or if there's unforgiveness, but when you have hard conversations, it's important that you're able to walk away from that knowing that you did it in love and you did it the way God wanted you to do it. emotional, mental guardrails. These are, what we think what we feel what we read what we watch. This is very impactful in our lives, especially with social media and all the things that we consume our lives with on a daily basis. This is impactful so much on our soul, you know, you can have the comparison trap or you hear all these things on social media, you're comparing yourself to someone else or you they they have things that you don't have that you wish you have and then you're then it just this a spiral. I don't know if some of y'all have dealt with that before, but I try to alleviate those on social media and just follow people that really ponder made me ponder on things and, and allow me to look introspectively in my wife of how I can be better. And so I think it's super important as far as emotional intelligence has such an impact on our lives if we don't put up appropriate boundaries or guardrails to what we need to be doing. Also, we can have some spiritual guardrails, and this is something that you know, it's so time consuming or we think it is You know, I'm at fault myself that I'm get so busy, but I'm having to purposely carve out time in my life, to make sure that I fill myself with the word, the worship. All that because so much in your day does not go as according as to plan or as according as it should if you aren't laying the foundation of Jesus, and those are just those are just powerful, but we can use that as an excuse, like, oh, God's always going to be there. But we are to study and pray and worship, and fast if you feel like you're called to fast and have the spiritual disciplines in our life, because it's knowing that God is a God of forgiveness and new beginnings. And so he wants us to be in close communion with Him. So we set up a healthy boundary and guardrail to put him first as a priority. And all we do. Psalm I'm, excuse me, Proverbs 420, through 23, I love this verse, it says, My child, pay attention to what I say, listen carefully to my words, don't lose sight of them, let them penetrate deep into your heart, for they bring life to those who find them in healing to their whole body, guard your heart above all else, for determines the course of your life. And this is found the New Living Translation, of course, there's different translations, but this one is powerful. It says, Let them penetrate. Let His words penetrate deep into your heart that is like going to the depths, the depths of your heart, that they bring life to those who find them that our words are to bring life to others, that we are to speak and to have people in our life that bring life to us. And so I just want to challenge you as you ponder on boundaries, guardrails, and there's so much research on boundaries, there's so much there's so many articles and all the things that you can look up on boundaries and guardrails. But I think that one thing I have learned is that God has called me to protect my heart. And that's not selfish. And in order to do that, I am able to pour out in such a greater way to others, and to love on others because my soul and my heart is healthy. And I have been years ago, 567 years ago, I've been very depleted and my boundaries were super weak, and it affected everything around me. So I can sit here today and talk about how healthy boundaries are so incredibly important, and it brings wholeness and healing to our lives when we practice them. And so I just want to encourage you to look at your life and look at the areas where you can possibly focus on putting up more boundaries relational guardrails, emotional and mental guardrails and even spiritual guardrails because God wants us to be the best version of ourselves. He created us with such beautiful gifts and wants us to be able to love on others and be Kingdom-minded. And in doing that, we have to be healthy, healthy in our own soul. So thank you so much.