W8D4: Guarding Your Heart

“The heart is more deceitful than anything else, and incurable — who can understand it?”  Jeremiah 17:9 CSB

We can avoid the pitfalls of unmet expectations if we learn to guard our hearts the way God intends for us to. In the Hebrew culture, heart, mind and will are interchangeable terms. Therefore, when Jeremiah tells us that the heart is not to be trusted, he is also speaking about our thoughts and our desires. There are times we don’t even know the damage done to our hearts or the thoughts that are in our minds. But when life “squeezes” us, when we hit a pothole in the road, what's in our heart will come flying out and surprises us.

This is why Proverbs tells us to guard our hearts diligently, above anything else with all vigilance. Because it is the source for everything we do. Every word we say, every action we take, every path we choose to walk comes from what lives inside our hearts. The sources of life flow from our hearts like a fountain. When we speak, it should be life that flows from our lips. But if we have not guarded our hearts well, death will flow out of them. 

Jesus said it is not what enters our bodies that defiles us, it’s what comes out of our hearts that harmful. That is good news because when we see or hear bad things we literally have to take them in; but we do not have to keep them. When someone hurts us, we will experience pain and heartache. Their actions are not what makes us worthless, it’s our response to their actions that make us unworthy. It is not sinful to feel attacked, abused, rejected, or unloved. Sometimes those feelings are connected to facts. People can do horrible, unthinkable things to us. We have to understand that those things have nothing to do with us and everything to do with the life flow that comes out of them.

We must guard our hearts against such attacks in a healthy way or we will become just like them and spew death from our words and actions. Unfortunately, our hearts are deceitful and they will trick us, guide us into protecting them in the wrong way. Our hearts will lead us into isolation, pulling us away from others for fear of being hurt. They will tell us not to admit to our struggles for fear of being shamed. They tell us to protect them from other people because they are hurtful, they will let you down and will reject you; often when you need them the most.

If our hearts had their way their motto would be, “Never love anyone more than they love you.” A life lived this way is a lonely, dark pit that spirals deeper and deeper with each hurt and painful experience. Self-protection doesn’t protect us from pain, it actually magnifies it. Our pain grows louder and louder each day. Guarding our hearts in this way doesn’t just keep the bad stuff out, it keeps the good things out too. There is no life flowing to and from our hearts to keep them beating. They eventually harden and die.

That’s why we must guard our hearts. To look for the good and forgive the bad. We must hold tightly to the love and let go of the hate. That is how a healthy beating heart works, good in…good out. That’s the rhythm of a well lived life.

List the actions you take when confronted with pain and disappointment. Do you think that you deal with pain in healthy ways? 

Meditate on Jeremiah 17:9