The Way Makers Book Club - A Personal Testimony!

“Hi! My name is Cheryl. While attending The WayMakers Book Club, I found out that I have a disease!  I've heard about it a few times in my lifetime, but always pertaining to someone else - not me!  

Boundareis: A Message of Inner Healing

Do you find yourself over-extended and overwhelmed with responsibilities? Do you often find it hard to say “no”? Do you often feel guilty about others’ feelings and behaviors? Do you assume responsibility for others’ feelings and behaviors? Do you put the needs and desires of others before your own? Are you a rescuer?

Find out how you can walk in victory and emotional health in my article Beginning with Boundaries (pgs 24-25) of The Vine Magazine.

Healthy Relationships

If we are going to fulfill our calling as Way Makers - Ambassadors for Christ, we must do it by engaging others in a healthy way.  We have to be able to help others with purity and integrity.  In others words, our motives are pure and we have no hidden agendas.  Our interaction with them should be sincere, straightforward and not self-seeking.  Sometimes we may not realize that we are helping them from a place of weakness.  The Bible says, "the heart is deceitful above all things and desparately wicked; who can know it." Jer. 17:9  This doesn't mean the we are deceitful, wicked people; but rather, that sometimes we have "blind spots" - areas of weakness that we are not aware of unless a situation or circumstance presents itself.  So there are times when we may think we are helping someone, with the most honorable of intentions, when in fact we are not. 

Someone asked me recently, "How can you tell when you are really helping someone or if you are just enabling bad behavior?"  I did not know the answer to that immediately, but after a brief explanation, it was very clear.  The answer:  you are enabling bad behavior when you see a "pattern of practice" over a period of time, with no sign of  improvement or change.  I knew the answer; my problem, as I recently discovered, was with making application.

When we enable bad behavior by consistently "helping" or "rescuing" someone, we prevent God from moving in the life of that person.  Recognizing your boundaries means:   knowing the difference between what is yours to do and what is God's to do.  It is vitally important that we learn to recognize what is our responsibility, what belongs to the individual, and what solely belongs to God.   

If you've been "helping" someone, and you become frustrated, resentful or angry, you'll know you've blown it. I certainly have.  But here's the proper response:  promptly ask God to forgive you and promptly make amends for the part you played. 

I'm learning to be discerning in these matters so that I can prepare the way of the Lord in the lives with whom I am to minister.  It's my responsibility - and Yours - as a Way Maker:  to reconcile the lost to God by facilitating the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of another - not get in His way.

Make a commitment to maintaining healthy boundaries in your relationships, so that God can use you to be an effective minister of the Gospel, preparing the way for our soon coming King!!  

Playing to an Audience of One

You are Ambassadors for Christ and therefore, ministers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  You have been called to prepare the way of the Lord by declaration of the message of reconciliation:  "Be reconciled to God."  The fields are ripe with harvest.  In fact, ministering to the needs of a wounded, lost and dying world can be quite daunting and overwhelming to say the least!  How do we respond to so great a need?

A question was put to me today, "“Is it possible to give too much?”  To which I responded:

"Yes, it is possible to give too much. I’m a newly ordained minister and I have found it necessary to establish healthy boundaries – knowing when to step in and when to remain. It is important that we serve out of a place of emotional and spiritual health. When we are depleted in these areas, we really don’t have much to give to anyone anyway, but we are deceived into thinking that we do. Speaking as someone who struggles with co-dependent behavior/motives, I know how easy it is to serve for the wrong reasons.  Wrong motives in service will ultimately result in feelings of resentment. Ministry leaders on the front lines would do well to do 3 things:

1. Examine our motives for service. Is it to please people or to please God?  Are you serving out of love, or to fill your own need for acceptance, to rescue or to make us feel good about ourselves. 
2. Acknowledge God in all of our ways so that He can direct our steps. 
3. Honor boundaries – yours and others. Sometimes we’re doing things that we are not responsible for doing.

Let's be like Jesus.  He only did what He saw The Father doing.  Play to an audience of One.

"They that wait upon the Lord, shall renew their strength.  They shall mount up with wings like an eagle; they shall run and not get weary; they shall walk and not faint."  Isaiah 40:31