10 LAWS OF BOUNDARIES

1. SOWING AND REAPING: Actions have consequences. Nagging won't help. Allowing others to suffer consequences of actions will.

2. RESPONSIBILITY: We are all responsible for ourselves. It is not responsible to rescue someone from the consequences of their sins.

3. POWER: Agree with the truth of your problems (confess). Ask for help and humble yourself. If you do what you are able to do, God will do what you are unable to do, bringing about change. Want to change. Seek out others you have hurt and make amends. Submit yourself to the process and work with God. You cannot change anything, but you (and only with God's help). Changing how you deal with others may motivate them to change, especially when their old patterns don't work anymore.

4. RESPECT: We judge boundary decisions of others, thinking we know best how they "ought" to behave. We comply and then we resent. We have to accept other's freedom to set boundaries just as we went others to accept ours.

5. MOTIVATION: Doing or giving has to be out of love not fear of losing love or abandonment. Loving someone doesn't mean having to always say, "yes." Freedom first and service second.

6. EVALUATION: Things you say can hurt and not harm. Saying "no" is having a purposeful life and someone responding with hurt or anger doesn't mean you don't set the boundary. Setting boundaries requires decision making and confrontation, which could cause some pain to others, but if we do not share these things then anger, bitterness and hate could set in. We need confrontation and truth from others to grow. It may hurt, but it can also help. Be willing and able to evaluate the pain in a positive light.

7. PROACTIVE: (not reactive) Proactive people do not demand right, but live by them. It's not something you deserve or demand, but express.

8. ENVY: This keeps us perpetually insatiable and dissatisfied. Understand what you resent and want and do I truly desire it. What do I need to do to get it? Am I willing to do it and if not then give up that desire.

9. ACTIVITY: We need to be active and assertive. We lose out when we are passive and inactive. God will match our effort, but He won't do the work for us. We need to do our part. Ask, seek and knock. Failing is not a sin. Failing to try is.

10. EXPOSURE: Your boundaries need to be made visible to others and communicated in a relationship. Fear causes us to hide ourselves.