Most of you are familiar with weight loss and goal weights. So am I. It seems like I’ve been on some form of weight control since I’ve been in my forties. Elsie coined a phrase that has helped me. She calls her upper limit her “screech mark,” as in putting on the brakes with the accompanying screech sound of a hard stop. A screech mark is a boundary. It tells me that I have set a boundary on how much weight I will permit myself to weigh. If I hit the screech mark I’ve got to put on the brakes and get back to sensible eating and exercise.

Screech marks can keep us from being mastered by a substance or behavior. First Corinthians 6:12 says, “All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything.” The first part of this passage bears out the old adage “just because I can do it doesn’t mean I should do it.” The second part of the verse is the pertinent part I want us to see. It says just because it is legal doesn’t make it moral. It could be harmful to me. I could become addicted to it. It could become my master, I its slave. For example, alcohol consumption is legal but if I don’t have boundaries in place I will become an alcoholic and alcohol will be my master and I will be it’s slave.

Screech marks are helpful boundaries with food and alcohol, but could they also prove useful in other areas. How about work? What is your screech mark on your job? How many hours do you work before you hit your screech mark? To go beyond your screech mark impacts your family, your health, and your relationships with others.

Screech marks are boundaries, beneficial barriers that protect us from abusing ourselves or others. What screech marks do you have in your life? What are your screech marks for sin in your life? Do you know when to put on the brakes?

Jamming on the brakes in my life,

Irv