Guardrails

Last night, I actually attended church in the evening. I'm glad I did. We had connection groups. It was the start of a series about spiritual guardrails.We discussed the importance of having personal spiritual guardrails. Guidelines that we hold in place for ourselves without expecting others to follow them. Many people have them whether they are spiritual or not. It is that invisible boundary we've put up to keep us from an area of life that we consider to be dangerous. An example of one of my guardrails is choosing to mainly listen to worship music. I don't expect anyone else to do that, but it is a boundary I have for myself. Words are important to me. They mean something to me. Even when naming my kids, I paid special attention to the names I was bestowing upon them. I avoided names that would curse them and chose ones that would bless them. I really like the name Calvin and was a big fan of Calvin and Hobbes growing up. I wanted to name one of my children that, but then I read that it means bald. I decided not to use it. There is nothing wrong with a man being bald, but I have seen the blow to a man's self esteem from hair loss and I don't want my sons to deal with it. Does naming them Calvin mean they will become bald some day. No. I'm still not going to speak that over them, though. With words meaning so much to me, I chose to avoid listening to songs with lyrics that I feel don't encourage or benefit who I'm wanting to be.Not everyone takes words so seriously and I don't expect them to. That's why I don't expect everyone to have the same guard up about music as I do for myself. Unfortunately people don't always understand that it is a personal thing. They see it as a holier than thou thing and a judgement upon them, if they don't follow the guidelines. I have felt that way myself. I hope, as we continue to study this, that I will not only strengthen my own guardrails, but I will not be so sensitive to the guardrails that others hold for themselves.