Building Fences

It is not my intention to make anyone feel badly about sharing their struggles with someone else. We all need help bearing burdens at times. Neither am I trying to give room for selfishness. These are my own opinions based on observations, and I understand you may not have had the same struggle. You are welcome to disagree.

A community I once lived in contained a compound of houses. Everyone who resided on the yard was related in some way. One day, however, a major change came about at the compound. A fence was built down the center. It was a large fence, a high, solid wall that one could not see through. There was nothing cozy or comforting about the wall. I heard through the grapevine that the wall was built because of a quarrel that seemed unresolvable. 

It was a conversation about this fence that brought a thought to me one day. Perhaps, if the residents of the compound had built a cute little picket fence years ago—you know, the kind roses climb on in pictures, the kind neighbors lean against and chat, where you can drop scraps to the dog in the yard next door—perhaps they wouldn’t have had to build a proverbial wall today.

Generally, we think of fences and walls as ill-advised additions to one’s life, yet haven’t we all seen them become necessary at one time or another? If there are no fences to keep cattle in or dangerous creatures out, we will end up with a problem. If there is no fence to mark the border between two yards, disputes can pop up about how to care for the lawn or what should be built or planted where. It’s important to know the borders and understand the boundaries.

It's also important in our daily lives.

If we go through life without setting any boundaries*, we are leaving ourselves open to become bitter and resentful people. Don’t believe me? Think about it just a minute. Let’s look at an example—something that could really happen.

Imagine you have a friend who is going through a difficulty. Now this friend really does have a bad situation going on, and because you are a true friend, you hear about the issue a lot. Mostly, she talks on and on about her problems, bad-mouths people who don’t see things from her point of view, and complains about how life isn’t fair. This is all OK, you can handle it for your friend, you think. After all, what are friends for anyhow? You’re sure thankful for the friends who have listened to you in times of distress, right?

And so you listen.

But somehow, your friend never quite manages to get things out of her system. She starts calling every day to talk to you about the same old stories. The first time the phone call takes an hour and a half, you sigh a little and go back to your work. But the next day, she calls again. It’s all the same things you’ve heard what seems like a million times. Again she talks for an hour and a half. After that, the phone calls become regular. Every day she calls, and every day, because you don’t want to feel like a bad friend, you listen.

Maybe you feel guilty the first time you sigh. Maybe you make excuses for yourself when you groan out loud as her name pops up on the caller ID. You are tired today, you don’t have the time or energy to listen to her for this long every day. But you keep answering. You grit your teeth and try to use your sweet phone voice. You’re glad she can’t see you glancing at the clock. But one day she calls and you just really can’t take it any more. Your own life is looming large. You have problems that aren’t going away. Your time-schedule is not working out, and does nobody care about your problems?

This time you might actually snap at her. Maybe you tell her, none too graciously, that you can’t talk today. Maybe you give her a frustrated sermon about actually listening to your advice for once. Maybe you just don’t answer the phone. But you feel like a terrible person afterwards. 

Whatever happened there? That surge of anger and frustration surely didn’t come from nowhere, did it? You are ashamed. You’ve failed at being a good friend. You feel sorry for yourself. It’s not like you should be expected to carry everyone else’s burdens, too, after all. And it isn’t much of a leap until you begin to feel resentment and bitterness creep into your heart.

And you should carry your friends’ burdens. You shouldn’t be feeling angry and frustrated. You’re right about that. But the problem did not start today. The problem started the first few times your friend called. The first time you realized that these phone calls were taking up too much of your time and emotional energy. Some good clear communication and fence building would have been in place way back there.

A fence built on a day when you don’t feel frustrated doesn’t turn into a wall. A fence built when you are thinking clearly and calmly is made of white pickets and rose bushes and a darling little gate that sometimes gets left open. A fence built on a good day is one that is not offensive or confusing. It’s a fence built of love that can have the ability to strengthen your ties to others rather than destroy them.

Your fence with your friend could have been simply letting her know you don’t feel like you can spend more than fifteen minutes on the phone. The fence could have been saying, “You know, I prefer to talk in person. Could you write down your struggles and just come over for coffee once a week?” Your fence might be harder to build—“I’m so sorry, I love you and I’ll pray for you, and if there is something I can do to help you out physically I would be glad to do that, but I’m feeling emotionally exhausted right now, and there might be someone else who could be a better listener.”

Those who build picket fences seldom have to build walls. As long as you respect your own fences, you won’t find yourself suddenly and inexplicably blowing up at someone else. You won’t be distraught at the callousness you suddenly find within yourself, your complete inability to care anymore. You won’t find yourself so burdened and drained by the problems of others that you can’t even focus on your own family, feelings, or relationship with God.

Relationships are very important to me, and I cannot express enough how crucial it is to be a listener. In Philippians 2:4 we are commanded Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. That doesn’t seem very compatible with building fences, does it? But I think it is. Because a few verses later, we are reminded to Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. 

Our own salvation is the first of our concerns. And like the cheerful flight attendants who remind us to put on our own oxygen masks before helping our by-sitter, we need to leave ourselves emotional space to work out our own spiritual life. We cannot do this when we are constantly overwhelmed by others.

Occasionally, it is this giving of ourselves to others that makes us feel needed, worthy, and validated. We forget that our validation comes from God and Him alone. We don’t need to work ourselves ragged trying to save the world in order to feel good about ourselves. Neither is it a healthy way of winning approval from those around us. This, too, is a fence that must be built, the ability to say no on occasion, and then not feel guilty about it. Oh, yes, I’m right there with you. I often am pathetically delighted by my diet of guilt. Somehow, I think feeling guilty will validate me.

But God does not want us to walk about laden with guilt for the times we’ve said no. Even Jesus built fences while He was on earth. Remember how he went by himself to the mountains? How He went apart from His disciples to pray? He gave and gave of Himself while in the flesh, but He knew when to build a fence and spend time with His Father so He would be able to continue giving.

This is true for each one of us, too. While reaching out is simply an extension of the person who has been saved at Calvary and rejoices in the resurrection at Gethsemane, we are all too human. We have not been built with the endless ability to give. 

And so today I want to encourage each one of you (along with myself) not to close up your bowels of compassion, but to use your God-given empathy carefully, to build a fence if you need one before things spiral out of control and you find yourself building a wall. We serve a God who will smile on one who opens the gate and communes with the neighbor, but our God is not a God of walls.

*Read the book Boundaries by Dr. Henry Cloud & Dr. John Townsend