Guard Your Heart

“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” Proverbs 4:23 

Think about that verse for a minute. Everything you do flows from the heart. Your attitude, your thoughts, your actions and especially your words. It all comes from what’s in your heart. Imagine filling up a glass so it overflows, the overflow will be whatever you’ve put into the glass. If you put root beer in the glass then milk won’t come out, root beer will. By the same token what you put into your heart will be what comes out.

If all you’re putting in cynicism from your friends, curse words from movies and complaining from your co-workers then cynicism, curses and complaining is going to be what come out. On the other hand if you’re balancing the complaining from co-workers with encouragement and uplifting attitudes from your friends, and wisdom from Scripture, combined with worship at church then it will be far easier to block the complaining from entering your heart and making sure that the encouragement is what’s coming out.

So step one to applying this verse is to guard your heart. Be careful who you’re surrounding yourself with, what you’re looking to for entertainment, whose advice you’re taking and even what people you’re allowing to speak wisdom into your life.

See friends someone can be very wise and have great advice but if all of their advice is tainted with criticism it might be best not to let them get too close. You shouldn’t ignore their advice completely though, after all it’s good advice. So what do you do? Well, you can take what they say, decide what you want to keep (i.e. the advice) and throw the rest (the attitude) away! Get rid of it before it has a chance to sink too deeply into your heart and become part of the river flowing out into your life.

Step two is to watch your outflow. Of course the first step to this is to watch what you take in but sometimes bad things filter through our guards. So before you open your mouth to speak, or start to take an action take a moment to think and pray about what you’re going to say or do. That way you’re controlling your outflow before you cause too much damage or regret.

Make an effort this week to remember Proverbs 4:23 and guard your heart.