Boundaries vs. Control

If someone says something you don’t like, feel free to communicate that you don’t like what they said, you don’t agree, etc., But don’t ever despise their freedom to say it.

Celebrate and exercise healthy boundaries and self-respect but the moment you try to take away the freedom of someone else’s expression, no matter how ignorant or malicious their expression is, you violate yourself. When you take freedom away from someone else because of their behavior, you limit your ability to confidently enjoy your own freedom.

Love doesn’t flee the presence of evil, nor does love punish or control the person who chooses evil.

Feel free to oppose and disagree with the person’s choice but never punish or dominate the person.

They are a child of God. They may be immature, they may be in error, they may be deceived, but they are still God’s kid.

People will read this and go to town with their “But’s” and “What if’s” but what really gets exposed in the opposition is our need for control. Many of us think “if we can find a vicious enough form of evil, we can justify our need to use evil ourselves.”

Controlling and dominating the will of another person is evil. We don’t combat violence with violence. An aggressive, violent reaction to violence only exposes our fear and ignorance of the power we already possess. If a violent man can take away what we hold most dear, we never actually possessed it to begin with.

The problem isn’t violence. The problem isn’t evil.

The problem is our shallow relationship with the spirit of love. We are weak and overly sensitive about our hurts and ignorant of just how strong love can make us.

We must not snuff out evil, we must brave the depths of love.