Morning friends,
I’ve been pondering a spiritual term I’d love to hear your thoughts on. As you read the Scriptures, how would you define the kingdom of God? For example, when Jesus tells us that the kingdom of God is near (Luke 17:20,21) what does that mean to you? When he says “seek the kingdom of God above all else (Matthew 6:33), how would you define or describe the Kingdom of God? Or even “the kingdom of God is like……a mustard seed, a hidden treasure, a small amount of yeast”. I have some thoughts but would love to hear yours.
Question: How does one balance mercy and stern boundaries with difficult people with whom you must interact?
Answer: Great question. I think it would be helpful to define the qualities of mercy so that we are clear about what we are balancing. Embodying biblical mercy is extending compassion, generosity, and kindness, especially to those we feel do not deserve it and/or to those who have harmed us. Being merciful is expressing patience and forbearance for difficult people who may not know better or be capable of better, as God has shown patience with us.
Being merciful is choosing not to punish the offender when it’s in your power to do so. For example, you chose not to press charges against someone who has stolen money from you. That does not mean removing the natural consequences of his or her actions. You may choose not to allow that person to be in your home or you may fire that person if he or she is an employee. But when you exercise mercy, you do not demand justice or punishment.
God calls us to be merciful as he is merciful (Luke 6:36). However, being merciful does not mean you have no boundaries or limitations. God is limitless and all-powerful. We as human beings are not. Therefore, to love ourselves and others well, we must seek to act both in our and the other’s long-term best interests.
Let’s get practical with what that might look like. Let’s say you have elderly parents who are critical and demanding. They have never shown much love or appreciation for you. They regularly complain to other relatives that you do not help them enough and those relatives are critical and gossip about your lack of care for your elderly parents. It would be tempting to defend yourself to these critical relatives. To tell equally negative stories about your parents to them. Or to stop helping your parents because it’s never good enough and you’re feeling resentful and angry over the way they have treated you.
Yet, what would mercy with firm boundaries look like with your parents? Only you can ultimately answer that question but here are a few ideas. First, you can pray for them. Prayer is costly. It takes one of our most valuable commodities, – our time. It’s a generous and compassionate thing to pray for someone who feels like an enemy, but that is something you could do to be merciful. In your time of prayer for them, you could also ask God to give you a compassionate heart for their blindness and immaturity. To help you be the person you want to be when you interact with them. Even when they repay your kindness with indifference, criticism, or evil, you don’t give them the power to shape you into someone you don’t like.
Second, you decide what you can do and what you can’t do (boundaries). What you can give what you can’t give (boundaries). What you will tolerate, what you won’t tolerate (boundaries). This is not anything you will communicate directly with them because they’ve already shown you that they don’t care to respect you or your boundaries. Defining your boundaries helps you get clear so that you don’t get trapped or manipulated to do or give more than you are able to do graciously. Let me give you some examples of boundaries for myself when I first began to help my sick mother after not speaking with her for 15 years.
When I flew down to Florida to see her, I decided I wanted to be a godly example to her. I wanted to show her love in small acts of kindness. I didn’t expect her to apologize to me, to love me, show appreciation, kindness, or even acknowledge I did anything good for her. My goal was to be the woman God called me to be, loving and merciful whether she noticed or not. Whether she appreciated it or not. Whether we had a relationship or not.
The first time I saw her after all this time she was in intensive care. A hospital room was a safe first meeting place because she was sick and harmless. Here’s what I did. I rubbed her crusty feet with lotion. I combed her dirty hair. I cut her ragged fingernails and put lip balm on her parched lips. (Merciful acts I was willing to do). When she made a few negative comments, I ignored her. (I wasn’t willing to argue, defend, explain, or justify). I prayed for strength as I practiced showing her who Jesus was with no words. When I got weary, I calmly said, to her “It’s time for me to go” and I’ll see you tomorrow. She didn’t get to manipulate me or guilt trip me into staying longer than I decided. (Boundary). If she told me she wanted me to leave, I left, with no argument. (I would respect her boundaries). The kinder and stronger I became, the less power she had over me.
God tells us he is compassionate and kind to the righteous and unrighteous alike (Matthew 5:45). But he doesn’t have a close relationship with both. It’s critical that you accept that being merciful towards someone does not guarantee a good relationship with that person. It is something you do because you choose to be more like Jesus. It doesn’t mean you’re going to allow that person to harm you again. Or that the person will see you in a new light. It doesn’t necessarily bring someone to change destructive ways, although it could. But that’s not why we do it. We do it because that’s who we want to be regardless of how others are or what they do or think or don’t do. We don’t do it to manipulate others. We don’t do it to get them to like us. We do it to be like Christ. And Christ had love and limits.
That’s the beautiful thing about being a mature grownup. You get to decide what kind of person you want to be and how you want to treat people, even when they are unkind or destructive towards you. Remember, that doesn’t mean you enable someone to continue to sin against you. Even Jesus escaped those who were trying to harm him (Luke 4:28-30; John 10:39). But it does mean you don’t treat people as they deserve. You treat them as image bearers of God, which is exactly who they are, even though they are broken and damaged through their own sinful destructive choices.
Friend, I’d love to continue the conversation since so many of you interact with destructive and toxic people. How do you show mercy with good boundaries?
