Guard Your Heart

Guard Your Heart

Jessica Sunday

Guarding your heart is sometimes the hardest thing to do at least for people who are of the nurturing and caring personality. People who love to pour themselves into opportunities and those around them freely without holding anything back are often the ones who have a difficult time abiding by a familiar verse found in Proverbs instructing us to guard our hearts. 

I will be the first one to admit that I have not made it an absolute priority to protect my heart over the years which left me feeling heartbroken, distraught, anxious, and worthless. Basically it left me with all the thoughts that Satan wants us to be thinking about in order to hinder our work from the Lord. That is a very dangerous place to be. 

We are instructed to guard our hearts with diligence because out of our heart comes the issues of life. Such issues could mean the dysfunction life brings, the grief we bear, the confrontations of others, the manipulative relationships, the insecure job, the loss we encounter, or the insecurities we have that circumstances have molded in us. Those are just some of the issues of life that come to my mind. I am sure you could name a thing or few of the issues of life that have really hit you. 

Your Heavenly Father says this to protect you from hurt and from heartache. Although not all hurt is unavoidable, there are ways we can remain guarded. Here are some ways to guard yourself in a relationship or the next opportunity that comes knocking at your door. 

1. Pray -  Pledge to pray for the specifics of a situation, person, or opportunity to see if it is of God for your life. 
2. Act - There is no doubt that this point can go one of two ways. One may decide to act by doing a kind thing for another person or by taking the next step in an opportunity. Some people may know that a certain person is not good company and brings out feelings of hurt for you. This may entail someone to not engage with that person so that it protects their heart. 
3. Reserve - Be reserved in sharing areas of your life unitl you have complete confidence that the person you are talking to is trustworthy in deep matters. 
4. Forgive - Please forgive the people in your past for making you feel insecure, worthless, anxious, or distraught. As much as guarding your heart is necessary, keeping mile high walls up to "protect" yourself based off of past hurt is not fair to the circumstance or person you are talking to. 

When you leave your heart unprotected, you leave room for thoughts of defeat, unworthiness, self-pity, anxiety, and insecurities to brew. These thoughts that are based off of a past experience can carry roadblocks in your next relationship or opportunities. Because of the hurt that was experienced, the mantra of building walls come into play. Guarding your heart and building up mile long walls are two very different things. By allowing walls to be built by past hurt, hurt that the current person you are speaking to did not cause, you block the relationship from growing. How you may be thinking? When someone who is building walls feels themselves getting vulnerable, they pull back. Or it may be when the person you are talking to offers you a word of encouragement, you doubt or question them due to past hurt that others have caused. You might even have thoughts of I heard that before. 

This mindset is completely unfair to offer someone. Instead of enjoying getting to know someone and growing together, either one of you or both of you are competing to see who places the next piece of the wall instead of helping each other break down the walls of past hurt together in order to grow closer together from the ground up. 

So, my encouragement to anyone reading this today is guard your heart with diligence, but break down the barriers that block you from the blessing standing right in front of you. 

"Keep your heart with all diligence, 

For out of it spring the issues of life."

Proverbs 4:23