Day 178 - Loving Limits
📖Daily Reading
Ezekiel 44-48
🎥 Video
Join me on my morning walk as we rise and shine together by walking through the Bible daily and learn a practical applicable coaching nugget from the ultimate life coach - our creator (whatever that means to you). No judgement zone here, all are welcome, we are all on a spiritual journey because we are after all spiritual beings having a human experience.
📝 Reflection
Ezekiel 47: 6-9
He asked me, “Have you been watching, son of man?” Then he led me back along the riverbank. When I returned, I was surprised by the sight of many trees growing on both sides of the river. Then he said to me. “This river flows east through the desert into the valley of the Dead Sea. The waters of this steam will make the salty waters of the Dead Sea fresh and pure. there will be swarms of living things wherever the water of this river flows. Fish will abound in the Dead Sea. For its waters will become fresh. Life will flourish wherever this water flows.
The last 10 chapters or so of Ezekiel are a single vision that he received from God in which he sent a man with face that was like bronze and had measuring instruments. This man took him around the area where the temple, roles, responsibilities, and cities would be re-established. On this vision tour very specific measurements where laid out for the temple, the doorways, courtyards, rooms, inner rooms and the altar. Roles and responsibilities where detailed and clearly outlined. The reallocation of land was specifically allotted and designated. Leadership of the princes and king where put into order and defined. Celebrations, offering, and special occasions were described and calendared. So on and so forth.
What can we learn from this? As we piggyback on from yesterday about having a healthy sense of self as created beings of a loving God who loves us and created us for a purpose, we need to have loving limits in place to protect this delicate balance. These loving limits, or healthy boundaries are there to help us live a good and abundant life. They serve us so that we can help and serve others according to God’s plan and design. This is the river of healing that our life can be a river for, true love from above, that is healing, life giving. It waters and nourishes everything on it’s banks, the life itself is teaming with life, it is flowing in the right direction and is even bring the Dead Sea to life. Beautiful imagery here.
Loving limits have to be clearly and specifically defined and adhered to in order to have this healing river of life. A river has banks aka limits so it can hold and direct the water. When we are clear in who we are because of our creator and we are so tuned in and spiritually connected, his word has become flesh, we know what these loving limits are and we can live by them. When we live according to the flesh and other people whims, desires and moods and we don’t have loving limits from above. We will feel like a shell that gets pummeled by the crashing waves, and dragged by the undertow of life and thrown about.
This is easier said than done. This will be lifelong work for me personally. I am an empath and I sometimes think I thrive, or my ego thrives on helping others. And by 'helping' I mean I dive in and ‘help’, fix, try to manage others moods and emotions, thinking that I am ‘helping’. Having done lots of healing work in this area and understanding co-dependency and enabling I now can see that I was just as often crippling and hindering others and myself vs. helping.
It was/is very ego gratifying though to get praise, recognition, and to feel ‘needed’ from others. It is sometimes hard to discern the difference, if this type of thing doesn’t come ‘naturally’ to you. On the other end of the spectrum, some people have very clear but ‘rigid’ boundaries. This can also be ego gratifying and feel loving, but often create isolation and limited connection.
Many of us have a mixture of both and we can have little to no boundaries in certain situations and with certain people or conversely rigid. Neither are healthy or loving, and this can be hard to tell when you are using other peoples reactions and your own needs of ego gratification to be the measure. This is a constantly moving, fickle, moody target to try to aim at much less hit. It is exhausting, draining, and frustrating and leads to a feeling like a dead sea or a valley of dry bones. God’s love and his loving limits are constant, consistent and reliable and lady to a river of healing.
It is worth the time and effort to take an inventory, see how you are doing, look at God’s instructions and get yourself in alignment and within the boundaries of and establish loving limits. You have to get specific, detailed and clear. Then we can live and serve from a place of overflow and authentic love and freedom. We free ourselves from trying to live by the approval of those around us. This is not easy, it takes vigilance and intentionality. You have to know who you are, where you stand and where your loving limits need to be and then abide by them. With God’s guidance and help and direction it is much easier.
✍🏼Daily Journal Prompt
Where do you need to have loving limits in your life? Are you a fixer and helper like me? Can you see that sometimes you might actually be hindering and disabling others?
📖Tomorrows Reading
Daniel 1-12
Coaching Opportunity
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