“Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.” Proverbs 4:23 NLT.
This is literally one of those scriptures that I can quote off the top of my head because it’s short and easily memorable. However this scripture has never made much more sense to me until my recent years of adulthood. I have been in a period of my life where I have had to make an intentional and deliberate decision not to close up my heart because of different life’s happenings. Have you ever found yourself in such a position before? Where there is a tug of war on whether to keep that heart of yours open or closed. Well I have, and as tempting as it is to close your heart that’s not God’s desire for us nor is it even wise for us to do so.
I know that by the time you get to the point of wanting to close your heart, you have already thought of all the justifiable reasons why you should, and somehow you think that closing up your heart guarantees you no harm nor pain from others. But as much as we may not experience pain by doing this, we also forfeit the other side of life which is not getting to experience the love being offered to us by those around us. I had recently reached a point in my life where I could sense my heart closing up and as much as I didn’t like that feeling at all, it somehow felt like the only viable option for me at the time. I started to care less about people. I no longer wanted to show up for people as I once did. I could feel the joy of serving others slowly diminishing. My heart stopped beating for the things it used to beat for. I wasn’t moved as much with other people’s pain as I once was. This alone left me worried and scared of who I was slowly becoming yet convinced that my life might just be better off that way.
Can you believe that your life course depends on your ability to guard your heart? Your life can actually take a different course and more than likely a course you don’t envision for yourself simply because your heart remains unguarded. Just like in life, a guard is normally placed in a certain environment to act as a point of contact and ensure that access isn’t just granted to anyone so as to avoid any form of unwanted guests. The same thing goes for your heart, not everyone deserves full access nor even any access at all and this is not to say that we should close ourselves off to people. I’m also aware that there are times we end up giving access to people who we never should have given access to in the first place and by the time we realize that, it’s already too late. Today I want us to consider guarding our heart instead of closing it despite and in spite of all the hurt and pain we have experienced. I was led to face the difficult truth that God never designed me or any of us to live life with a closed heart. Instead God asks that we guard our hearts because from there the issues of life will flow. A closed heart is a heart that lacks vitality and one of the ways to preserve our own vitality in this life is by guarding our hearts as the Lord instructs us to do.
You don’t want the direction of your life to be altered because of your inability to guard your heart.
This resonated deeply with me. Thank you for the reminder to guard one’s heart instead of reacting impulsively to closing it when going through life’s experiences.