Hi all

Ok, let's dive into the topic of boundaries in spiritually mismatched marriage.  Have you been thinking about what kind of boundaries are important in a SUM? I've been jotting down various ideas over the last few days.

(And in case you missed it, here's part one in this series)

To start off with, let's take a look at this parable from Jesus. Do you see boundaries in it?

The Kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. The wise, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep.

At midnight the cry rang out: 'Here's the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!' Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish ones said to the wise, 'Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.' 'No', they replied, 'there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.'

But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut. Later the others also came. 'Sir! Sir!' they said. 'Open the door for us!' But he replied, 'I tell you the truth, I don't know you.' Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour. (Matthew 25:25, NIV).

I know as we're a Bible-reading bunch, many of us will have read this parable several times over the years. However, a parable will often have more than one lesson to it, and sometimes you see something completely new in it -- Which is what happened to me a few days ago. I happened to read it as part of my daily reading and suddenly thought 'Oh, this is about boundaries!'

See, I had always thought of this parable in terms of keeping yourself filled with the Holy Spirit. And that is certainly what it's about. But what I had never noticed before was the fact that half the virgins were trying to take the oil from the other half. And the wise virgins had to put their foot down and say 'No, that crosses a line.' In other words, the wise virgins had to put a boundary in place to protect their most precious thing.

What was their most precious thing? It was their oil, which enabled their lamps to burn, without which they could not access their master. It was their Holy Spirit, their very source of life. 100% precious.

Yes, it would have been seemingly 'generous' of them to give up a little of their oil. But the outcome of that would actually have been disastrous. So they took a step, and protected their own access to Jesus at the risk of being unloving.

The moral might be for us that we need to put boundaries around holding tight our access to Holy Spirit, our infilling of the Holy Spirit, our time with God, our ability to worship him and keep him close, and our very source of LIFE, at the risk of being a little less 'generous' to our spouse.

This can involve a little bit of a fight, because our spouse doesn't yet see the value of the oil. They naturally might want to pull us away from the oil. 'Stop reading the Bible now, you've had enough of that!' 'Turn that worship music off!'

Practically, then, what kinds of things should we fight for in a marriage in order to keep our oil? 

How do we stay considerate to our spouse without giving up our oil?

Have you had to fight to hold on to a particular thing in your faith life?

I might pause there and see what you have to say in the comments. And then we'll continue on Wednesday.

Love you all!

Ann