Built to bloom: finding freedom in boundaries

When it comes to mission the term ‘Rewilding’ is in vogue, and I love understanding the freedom and attentiveness in the phrase. However, recently I have felt God ask me to look at my life through the lens of a walled garden.

There’s a quiet beauty in a walled garden.

Step inside one and you immediately notice the difference. The chaos of the outside world is muffled. The air is still. Sunlight filters gently through the trees. Within the walls, things flourish - vines climb, flowers bloom, fruit ripens in its season. There’s peace, order, and purpose.

It may seem strange to think that walls - so often associated with division or restriction - could be essential to growth. But in a garden, they are. They protect. They create an environment where life can flourish.

Some of us are like that garden. We need walls in our lives, not to shut people out, but to create space for deep, intentional growth. We need boundaries - not as barriers to love or community, but as protections for the sacred work happening within us.

The freedom of boundaries

In our culture, freedom is often defined as the absence of restriction. But true freedom, the kind that leads to life, often requires structure. A vine left to grow without guidance ends up tangled and unfruitful. But train it along a trellis or a wall, and it bears fruit in season. Its growth becomes beautiful.

Jesus understood this well. He often withdrew to quiet places - mountains, gardens, lonely places - to pray. He knew when to say yes, and when to say no. He didn’t heal everyone, feed everyone, or respond to every demand. Even in His perfection, He modelled boundaries, and He invites us to do the same.

In John 15, Jesus says, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit.” Remaining in God means staying connected - but it also means allowing God to prune, to tend, to guide our growth. It means letting God build walls around the places in us that need shelter to become whole.

Walls that nurture, not isolate

The walled garden isn’t isolated - it’s intentional. The walls keep out what doesn’t belong: the predators, the trampling feet, the weeds that would choke the life out of the good soil. They create a sacred space where the gardener can work with care.

Many of us have grown up believing that to be good Christians, we must always be available, always giving, always open. But unfiltered openness often leads to burnout, resentment, and spiritual depletion. Jesus calls us to love others, yes - but also to be good stewards of our own souls and attentive to God’s call for us and our community.

Sometimes, obedience looks like building a wall - not of bitterness or fear, but of wisdom. A wall that protects our time with God, creates healthy direction, guards our mental health, and gives the Spirit room to create and breath life. The walled garden is about cultivating something so beautiful, so life-giving, that it can feed and bless others.

The plants that grow

I like to spend my prayer time asking God what’s within my walled garden, what is it that God is growing, pruning back, planting? It’s during these times that God reveals different hedges, plants and flowers that God is nurturing in my life. Some are just for me, and others are for the work I’m involved with, having a greater community focus. The Spirit has an uncanny knack of being so specific that I have no chance of hiding in the garden, it is both disarming and reassuring. Sometimes I feel like God reveals a random plant that I know nothing about, which I follow up by researching and then holding it before God in prayer, happy that it’s there and trusting in God’s good gardening.

The Master Gardener

Jesus is the Master Gardener of our lives. He knows what needs pruning, what needs planting, what needs to be protected, what needs multiplying and where the walls need to go. Let Jesus be the one who nurtures our garden, who builds the walls in your life. In that sacred space, you won’t just survive - you’ll thrive, and the world will see the fruit.

Jo Allen

Co director, Rural Ministries