Christians can be strange about the word "boundary."

We hear it and immediately wonder if it's a bit selfish. A bit worldly. A bit un-Christlike. Jesus loved everyone, we say. Shouldn't we?

Yes. And also, read the gospels.

This week's theme: Company.

Today, the hard truth. Jesus loved perfectly, and he still walked away from people. So can you.

THE THINGS JESUS DID THAT WE DON'T TALK ABOUT

We tend to remember the Jesus who welcomed everyone. The children on his lap. The tax collectors at his table. The woman at the well. That Jesus is real, and he is beautiful.

But he isn't the only Jesus in the gospels.

There is also the Jesus who walked away from crowds when they wanted more of him. Luke 5 says the news about him was spreading, and great crowds were coming, but "Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed." He left. On purpose. When the demand for him was highest.

There is the Jesus who rebuked Peter, one of his closest friends, with words that would end most modern friendships. "Get behind me, Satan. You are a stumbling block to me." That's Matthew 16. Peter had just tried to talk him out of the cross. Jesus did not soften it. He named it, hard, in front of the others.

There is the Jesus who sat at the last supper next to Judas, knowing exactly what Judas was about to do, and let him go do it. He did not launch a rescue mission. He did not chase him down the road. He gave him bread, and let him leave.

That is a sentence I have to sit with sometimes. Jesus, releasing someone to their own decision. Not because he didn't love him. Because love does not always mean unlimited proximity.

Here is what the modern church has too often taught, especially to those of us who lean toward pleasing people. It has taught us that any distance from anyone is a failure of love. That the loving thing is always to stay close, stay available, stay in reach.

That is not what Jesus modelled.

Jesus withdrew from crowds. Jesus rebuked friends. Jesus released a betrayer to his own choice. Jesus went to the cross for the world, and he also protected his soul and his mission from being pulled apart by the wrong voices.

If Jesus needed to do this, you probably do too.

There is someone in your life right now whose proximity is costing you more than the relationship is worth. Not because you don't love them. Not because they are a bad person. But because staying that close is quietly pulling you away from who God is making you.

You are allowed to create distance. Not hatred. Not silence. Not a dramatic confrontation. Just distance. Fewer hours. A softer availability. A phone call that ends when it needs to end.

You can love someone and still not sit in their kitchen every week.

The hard truth is that some of us have never been given permission to do this, and so we haven't. We stay close to relationships that are quietly draining us because we have been told that leaving would be unchristian.

It isn't. Jesus walked away.

YOUR ONE THING FOR TODAY

Name one relationship in your life that has been costing more than it should.

You are not ending it today. You are not confronting anyone. You are just naming it honestly, in your own head, without dressing it up.

Then ask God one question. What would loving distance look like here?

Listen for the answer over the next few days.

OVER TO YOU

What has staying too close cost you? One line. Hit reply. I read every one.

God bless you, my friend.

P.S. Known: Discovering Who God Says You Are is out now. The chapter called NAMED is written for anyone who has been carrying labels that were never God's, including the ones we absorb from the people around us. Newsletter readers still get 50% off for a limited time.