Out east, in Egilsstadir, our topic was Relationships. One of the key points that was discussed during the entire week was on guardrails. These are not the guardrails you see on the side of the road, but they serve the same function. Figurative guardrails are set in place to keep you on the road and away from dangerous areas where you will most likely encounter injury of some kind. To properly set up guardrails in your life, you need to be vocal about it. If someone doesn’t know about your guardrails, how can they respect them. This ties into having Friends of Accountability. By letting your friends know about your guardrails, they can help you stay away from them. I think that I need to write down my guardrails, make it something permanent, not just a thought in my head. Then I have to tell some friends or family, because, if I don’t tell anyone, it is too easy to just push the limits since no one knows what I agreed to. For example, when hanging out with friends of the weekend, saying that I will only have up to two drinks. I need to tell them what my guardrails are, but I also need to tell friends whom I can trust to hold me to that.
The final day of teaching was on finances and the one thing that stood out to me was about greed. I have never thought of myself as a greedy person, but I now realize that greed has a hold of my life. The question that made me come to this conclusion is as follows:
“Do we trust in God or our stuff? Trusting in our stuff makes us greedy.”
I place a huge amount of trust in my finances, always checking my account balances and crunching the numbers. I am so concerned with making sure I have plenty of savings, that I don’t give any money away. I am not a complete miser, but I don’t want any of my money simply leaving my wallet without anything in return. In order to say that I trust in God, I need to relinquish my trust in money.
To cap off the week of teaching we drove an hour north, through the mountains to reach a spa. Before a relaxing evening of soaking in an outdoor hot tub or the sauna, we watched a video. It was a short film by Rob Bell called The Flame. It was speaking about love, and the three different types of love there are in the Bible. Friendship, Commitment, and Sex. What stood out to me was that all three are essential for a strong spousal relationship. They need to proceed in the order listed as well. Since I am not married, it was hard to think of how I can apply that to my life, but it is am important piece of information to carry into future relationships.
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