Beyond Boundaries by John Townsend

Author:John Townsend [Townsend, Dr. John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-310-41290-8
Publisher: Zondervan
Published: 2011-04-13T04:00:00+00:00

Risk, Love, and Freedom

A risk is simply the possibility of danger. Taking a risk means you make a choice knowing that you cannot control an outcome. It could be in any area of life: finances, physical activities, or relationships. When you are jogging on a road, you risk being hit by a car. When you move off the road onto the grass, you risk stepping into a hole and twisting your ankle. So you measure the risk in light of the potential gain. Every day we make these calculated judgments, in ways both small and large. The same is true in relationships. When a man walks up to a woman at a party and introduces himself, he takes a risk that she will not be interested. When the woman responds, she risks that he may, in turn, then back off.

Yet, risk is the only path we have to experience truly satisfying relationships. The way it is supposed to work is that over a gradual process, both people peel back the onion layers of who they are, eventually getting to the deeper levels. That is where great friendships, dating relationships, and marriages are headed. But there is a catch, which is what risk is all about: healthy connections always give the other person a choice. This is the possibility of danger. If you are interested in someone, if you are invested in someone, if you love someone, you must allow that person freedom. They can choose to not reciprocate your love, to be uncaring, and to end the relationship. And you must guard their freedom to do this. It is the only way you, or anyone else, will truly experience love.

Love cannot exist without freedom. No one can give himself to another at an authentic level if he doesn’t have a choice. It is meaningless to have another person be with you out of fear, obligation, or pity. What would that experience be like for you? You would feel empty and isolated. You would not feel connected. You would most likely pull away from the relationship. Love can’t be commanded or coerced; it can only be given.

A friend of mine, Richard Gonzalez, leads a large, small-group-based ministry at a church in the Los Angeles area. He helps husbands who have mistreated their wives and whose wives, as a consequence, have left them. The men come to him broken and with no idea how to repair things. He says, “The first thing I tell them is to stop texting and calling their wives. Most of the time, they are overwhelming their wives with constant appeals to return — begging, pleading, and trying to make them feel guilty. I tell them, you are trying to control your wife, which is what got the relationship in trouble in the first place. Stop this and start working on yourself, for yourself — not to get her back. Then let her find out that you are a new man.”

Richard is highly successful in this approach. He

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