7 Boundaries that Give you More Rest in Life

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God has placed boundaries all around us. Our natural inclination is to push against them, to drive past them, to rebel against them, but that only leads to harm.

When we respect the boundaries God has placed around us, things tend to go well for us and we experience rest. When you’re driving on the road, you’ll see guardrails on the sides of dangerous curves. Those guardrails aren’t there to oppress you or punish you or steal your joy. Those guardrails are there to protect you from harm. If you stray off the road, it’s better to crash into a guardrail and do minor damage to a car rather than drive off a cliff and lose your life. You can drive straight through those guardrails if you want to rebel against the authority that placed those boundaries around you, but you do so at your own peril.

When we push against the boundaries that God has naturally placed around us, life starts going sideways and we make ourselves miserable. When we respect God’s boundaries, we’ll find peace, joy, and rest. Here are seven boundaries that will help you experience more joy and more rest in life.

Have a Quiet Time Every Day

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This helps develop spiritual rest. It’s a time when you get away from everything else and spend time with Jesus. “Quiet” means that there are no distractions. Nothing. Let go of your to-do list for a while. “Time” means it’s meaningful, not just a quick prayer on the way to work or school, or a series of thoughts while going about your daily tasks. It should be purposefully separate

Once again, this isn’t some rigid rule that if you break God is mad at you. It’s for your benefit. God’s every edict, in fact, is for our own good—every law, rule, and suggestion. If you spend time with Jesus everyday by reading his Word, praying, singing songs, meditating on Scripture, it helps you. It gets your mind right. It gets your heart right. It gets your soul right. And remember, everything builds off of your relationship with God. Build margin here, and everything else benefits.

Learn to Say "No"

This is a personal boundary that helps develop personal margin. If you don’t know how to say "no," when you need to, all your other margins get messed up. Jesus even points to this as a deeply spiritual issue. Here’s what John 5:44 says: "You are consumed by the approval of other men, longing to look good in their eyes; and yet you disregard the approval of the one true God."

Some people can’t say ‘no’ to others. That’s a problem. Our inability to say ‘no’ to others impedes our ability to say ‘yes’ to God. Now obviously this doesn’t mean be a jerk, this means establish boundaries. No one else will establish boundaries for us. We have to do it. We have to take responsibility for ourselves. We have to be willing to disappoint others and say "no," when necessary.

Sleep and Exercise

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These boundaries create physical margin. We need this. Eight hours a day we need sleep. Those are some pretty big margins. God was trying to make a point. A third of your life devoted to rest. It’s a constant, daily reminder that we need rest. We were created to live within the boundaries He’s set. It’s when we disregard those boundaries that life starts going sideways on us.

Exercise is just as important. If our bodies aren’t healthy, everything else suffers. We need to stay in shape. Some jobs require physical effort, many don’t. You need to exercise to stay healthy. If we don’t have time to exercise, go back to number 2. Say "no" to something else. Your physical health is that important. If you don’t have energy to exercise, exercise anyways. If you wait until you "feel" like exercising, you’ll be waiting awhile. Good exercise and good sleep gives you the energy you need for the day. Your body needs that physical margin.

Fall Out of Love With Social Media

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This may seem odd but it’s something we struggle with today. Our parents and grandparents didn’t struggle with it. We need technological boundaries. There have been several studies that have shown that social media can be just as addictive as smoking, drugs and alcohol. If you’re on social media all the time, that’s a problem. It’s stealing you from what’s important and replacing it with what’s useless. A study in 2012 actually showed that the more social networks you’re linked to, the more likely the social media will be a source of stress by trying to keep up with it all.

That doesn’t mean get off of social media forever. That means develop some boundaries. Fall out of love with it. Social media is not the end all. It’s not the answer. We need to develop margins here.

Give Presence More Than Presents

Christmas is the season of the year where everyone starts focusing on getting gifts for each other. Gifts are fine and good, but what your kids, your family wants more than gifts is you. They want you to be present. This plays off of the last one. Once we fall out of love with social media and don’t need to be connected all the time, we remember what’s really important. Parents: your kids would love gifts, sure. But what they really want is you, present. Not just you at home with your face stuck in your phone or watching TV.

When you practice presence with those you care for, being there, being attentive, removing distractions, you actually create the emotional and relational space needed for healthy relationships to thrive. So, put your phone down.

Go Off the Grid Regularly

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That means periodically removing yourself from everything and just giving yourself time to think, to be. This develops mental margin. One of the greatest downsides of technology today is that we’re always connected. Our brains never get a chance to rest and just be. Research shows that our brains are wired to need rest. If we never unplug and go off the grid, we may experience negative self-esteem, depression, worry, anxiety and health issues, all the opposite of rest.

You may want to take the TV out of your bedroom. With the tv in your bedroom, it’s too easy to watch TV rather than talk with a spouse or get to sleep on time. Your mind will never get the chance to rest. However you need to, find a way to get off the grid regularly. Your mind is designed to need rest, just like the rest of you. If you never disconnect, your mind won’t find rest.

Downsize Your Life

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This is financial margin. Quit buying stuff you don’t need. Quit over-leveraging yourself and making yourself miserable. Develop a budget and stick to it. Find your worth in God, not in stuff. Learn to say "no". Here’s what Paul, in 1 Timothy 6:10, tells Timothy in the New Testament: "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs."

When we don’t respect financial boundaries, we make ourselves miserable. When we are content with what we have, we find rest. And it means some hard decisions. Cut the cord, sell something you don’t use, get out of debt. Financial margin leads to financial peace, which is necessary if you ever want rest.