The value of a “fence” …
Several years ago, a few psychologists conducted a study by taking a group of children and putting them in the back yard of a home that did not have a fence. The researchers told the children they could play anywhere in the yard they wanted, and that they should run, laugh, play, and enjoy themselves fully.
The children did that with reserve. Because there wasn’t a fence outlining this back yard, the children tended to stay close to the house. The lack of a fence had a muting effect on their play.
Next, the same researchers took the same children into the back yard of a different home, but this back yard was fenced. The researchers gave the same children the same instructions, and the results were strikingly different. This time, the children ran and played with abandon! They were all over the yard. They repeated this process with multiple groups of children, with each group rendering similar results.
The conclusion, according to the researchers, was the children felt safer to have a full expression of play in the fenced back yard because the fence gave them a clear guideline within which they could express themselves fully and freely.
This simple study highlights a basic point about human behavior: our innate need for personal boundaries.
Without a clear demarcation of what constitutes appropriate behavior, we tend to express ourselves excessively, or constrain ourselves inappropriately. When there is nothing to hold us back, our human history is one that is marked by a preference to indulge ourselves even to the point of personal negligence or disregard for others.
Fortunately, our Creator understands this need and provided for it by supplying us with His Word as the marker for the exercise of our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. By using the Word of God as our “fence,” we have a clear understanding of how we can express our whole selves in a way that is full, free, beneficial and “safe” for ourselves and others. Psalm 119:105 puts it this way: “Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path.”
Scotty
August 8, 2011 at 2:45 pm
Scotty, I found this article on a ReTweet. I was just in a discussion about boundaries with someone yesterday, so this was timely. I have heard of this study before. Thanks for posting it. Do you have a link to the source of the study…that would be helpful.
August 8, 2011 at 4:52 pm
Greg, I don't have a link as this was a study I reviewed several years ago. Let me add I used the term "boundaries" in this post very carefully, as I didn't mean to reference it in what has become the conventional sense. It is essential we have boundaries on OURSELVES, an appropriate governor on our own thoughts, emotions and behaviors. It's also true there is a time and place for establishing boundaries with others. However, the teaching about "boundaries" over the years has become distorted, warped, and thoroughly unbiblical. Today, it is not uncommon for Christians, and many Christian "leaders" to teach if someone is difficult or if someone isn't a benefit for you to achieve what you want, then eliminate them from your life. Such teaching doesn't have a biblical foundation; in fact, the example of Christ is the opposite. So I just want to highlight my use of the need for boundaries in this post is very narrow and limited only to the example provided here.
August 9, 2011 at 3:24 pm
This teaching regarding "personal benefit" over "sacrificial love" is something that I have recently heard this coming from a few leaders. I don't know how widespread it is. I discovered that a woman I know was counseled to leave her husband because he (the husband) was hindering her in her pursuit of revival. There was nothing immoral about their relationship, he attended church, he was saved. So she filed for divorce and left him. Uhh, what? If this is what is happening in the church, it's crazy!
August 9, 2011 at 4:45 pm
Greg, unfortunately some of this teaching is out there, and increasingly so. It seems the unbiblical, ungodly nature of it is obvious, nevertheless it's still being taught and applied. There is a best selling book called "Boundaries" written by a couple Christian counselors that is often used as a teaching resource in Christian groups. Unfortunately, if a leader isn't biblically grounded enough to adequately cover the topic, you can wind up having whole groups learning a warped concept of boundaries. If Christians would be devoted first to scripture, they would be equipped to weed out inappropriate teaching and concepts, but unfortunately even most Christians spend little time in the Bible, so they become vulnerable to wrong teaching.