Is it possible that others will become angry at our boundaries and attack or withdraw from us? The answer is -- ABSOLUTELY! God never gave us the power or right to control how others respond to our no. Some will welcome it; some will hate it.

Jesus told the rich young ruler a hard truth about eternal life. He understood that the man worshiped money. So he told him to give it away -- to make room in his heart for God. The results were not encouraging. The Bible says that when the young man heard this instruction, he went away sad because he had great wealth (Matt 19:32). Jesus could have manipulated the situation so that it was less hard to swallow. But he didn't. He knew that the young man had to know whom to worship. So he let him walk away.

We can do no less. We can't manipulate people into swallowing our boundaries by sugarcoating them. Boundaries are a "litmus test" for the quality of our relationships. Those peopl in our lives who can respect our boundaries will love our wills, our opinions, our separateness. Those who can't respect our boundaries are telling us that they don't love our 'no.' They only love our 'yes' -- our compliance. Setting limits has to do with telling the truth.