Jesus Loves Boundaries: How to Protect Your Heart from Burnout

What does it mean to have healthy boundaries? Boundaries are the lines of protection we draw around our lives, keeping the valuable and meaningful things in and the distractions and excess out. Boundaries are the fence you build around your home to keep you and your people safe from harm. Boundaries determine what you will and won’t allow in your life. They’re the invisible guardrails that you build around the things that matter most to you.

Proverbs 4:23 talks about boundaries when it says, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” Who is responsible for guarding your heart? You are. You and you alone are put in charge of protecting your heart,because the condition of your heart impacts the condition of your life. Your heart is valuable,and it’s worth protecting. And you protect your heart when you live a life with boundaries.

Boundaries have a biblical basis. When God placed Adam and Eve in the garden, He set a boundary of protection for them by letting them know to stay away from the specific tree that would harm them. “And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die'” (Genesis 2:16-17). Boundaries keep us safe. In this case, God was setting a clear boundary to protect His children from the very thing He knew could harm them. Without boundaries, we’re unsafe. In fact, not only are people who lack boundaries unsafe and unprotected, but they also become unsafe to you and others—because if they don’t have boundaries with themselves, they won’t have boundaries with you either. If they don’t know how to protect their hearts, they won’t know how to protect yours. If they can’t honor their own boundaries, they certainly won’t honor yours. Boundaries protect what matters!

JESUS PROTECTED HIS HEART

Jesus understood the importance of boundaries and the significance of protecting what mattered most. First and foremost, He protected His relationship with the Father. Time and time again in Scripture, we see Jesus pulling away, saying no to the obligations of life, in order to say yes to obeying the Father. In Luke 5:16 we read: “Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.” He often withdrew. He frequently set a boundary. He regularly went away, alone, to be with the Father. He knew that in order to pour out, He had to be filled up.

What makes this concept even more significant to me is the verse that comes before: “Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses” (Luke 5:15). Jesus was in high demand! Crowds of people were coming from all over, traveling for days and days on foot, just to be in His presence. They were longing for healing and hope! Jesus was everything they needed! And yet, what did Jesus do in response? He went away, alone, to pray. The more He was needed, the more He needed to fill up. Talk about healthy boundaries!

What I don’t see in this passage is a person who spread Himself too thin, depleted Himself to the point of burnout, and met the needs of others no matter the cost. What I do see is a man who understood, though He was fully God and fully man, that He had a human capacity. He honored the limitations of His human body by taking time to be filled up by the Father. The greater the demands, the more important it was for Him to protect His heart by filling up on the only One who could really satisfy. In order to say yes to the Father, He had to say no to the demands and expectations of others. He chose obedience over obligation.

Jesus knew that in order to do all God had called Him to do, and in order to be the most effective He could be with the limited time and energy He had, He had to protect His heart and set boundaries. He knew the importance of being alone with God so He could then fill up and pour out. Are you living on empty and trying to function day in, day out, on your own strength? Or are you setting aside time to be filled by His Spirit and strength? Because nothing and no one in this world will ever be able to give you what you need—but Him. Make time for what matters most. Make time to fill up.