Daily Journal: 6 July

Leavened Bread and

Unleavened Boundaries

Have you ever experienced someone standing against you, routinely misunderstanding you, creating obstacles in their relationship with you, refusing to be a safe place, or a quiet landing for an honest, caring, authentic relationship?

If you've experienced that, you'll know how much that can take from you.

What is my bread mix like?

To remain healthy, and try to overcome as we go along, we have to keep checking in with ourselves.

Have I mastered myself in such a way, that my boundaries prevent this person's reactions against me to contaminate my bread mix?

Asking questions like these can help:

Am I allowing this person to rule me in a way that is dishonouring to God's value of me? How should I approach their hostility? Do I have a plan in place that gives them a firm boundary line? Am I carrying malice against this person? What unaddressed feelings am I carrying? Am I nurturing self-pity or a sense of victimhood? What am I allowing to go unchallenged within myself that is unhealthy? For my own wellness and the unhindered productivity God wants in my life, what do I need to pay attention to and change?

1 Corinthians 5:8 (NCV)

So let us celebrate this feast, but not with the bread that has the old yeast—the yeast of sin and wickedness. Let us celebrate this feast with the bread that has no yeast—the bread of goodness and truth.

I can’t celebrate relationships that are full of fermentation.

I have to throw out old yeast because it causes my life to be intolerable, lacking in emotional health.

1 Corinthians 5:7 (AMPC)

Purge (clean out) the old leaven that you may be fresh (new) dough, still uncontaminated [as you are], for Christ, our Passover [Lamb], has been sacrificed.

When others want to stop me from throwing my 'leavened bread' out, I need to question why? Part of the beauty of relationships with other true believers should be that we choose to witness and support one another’s proving process. Slander and distrust are part of a leavened batch of bread that should not be tolerated amongst believers. It needs to be spoken about honestly (but as gently as possible) because it carries contamination.

Christ is not part of contamination amongst His family.

2 Timothy 2:21 (AMPC)

So whoever cleanses himself [from what is ignoble and unclean, who separates himself from contact with contaminating and corrupting influences] will [then himself] be a vessel set apart and useful for honourable and noble purposes, consecrated and profitable to the Master, fit and ready for any good work.

There are people and situations where strife keeps occurring with and around them. Sometimes, it is required of us, for a time, to step away in order to keep ourselves clean and detached from their choices and strife.

How do you safeguard your life, and correct yourself, so that the bread you reproduce will cause you to be fit and ready for any good work?

I pray over our leavened bread and unleavened boundaries. I pray that we will be unhindered by old, leavened bread and will have unleavened boundaries, able to receive what is right and profitable and reject what is not. Make us sincere and truthful, yet gentle, so that corrupting influences will not be able to destroy our lives.