Don't Wear Out Your Welcome

Withdraw thy foot from thy neighbour's house; lest he be weary of thee, and so hate thee. Proverbs 25:17 (KJV)

This tells us that we all need to have boundaries in relationships. We can ruin a good thing- or even a “God thing.” We can turn it into a bad thing by not establishing, or not observing, boundaries. Everyone has a limit. Too much of a good thing can actually hurt us.

Be a blessing to others and not a burden. We all need our own time and space. We can wear people out, and instead of them welcoming us, they become weary of us. Weary in the passage above in Hebrew means full of thee. People can only take so much of us. If we take things too far, love can turn to hate. They will get to the point where they can’t stand us anymore and dread to see us headed their way. This can even happen with the best and closest of friends.

 But this woman is driving me crazy. I’m going to see that she gets justice, because she is wearing me out with her constant requests!’” Luke 18:5 (New Living Translation, NLT)

This judge, who was not a just judge, gave the woman justice because she made a pest out of herself. It might have been good in this situation, but we don’t want to drive people crazy by never giving them time to themselves. Most people will give us clues that it is time to leave them on their own for a while. Sometimes the clues are subtle, sometimes not. We need to learn to notice those clues and back off.

What’s my point? Learn when to spend time with people and learn when to leave them alone. This is one of the simplest boundaries that we should observe in a relationship. All people involved will be better off for it- and you may have saved a lifelong friendship in the process.