Guarding your heart

Maybe you have experienced a feeling of betrayal that hurt so bad it felt as if the pain was coming from your heart? Poured into a person so deeply, your heart felt crushed by the pain. Maybe you have heard the saying “hurt people, hurt people”, but that is not the desire of God. God is of peace who desires us to guard our hearts and minds through his word. Proverbs 4:23 tells us “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it”. The heart is a primary organ within our circulatory system, and a key factor for our souls. How will one be able to keep watch without also guarding all that is within ourselves? David asked God ``Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting (Psalm 139:23-24).

Before my walk with Christ I constantly felt misunderstood and used by the people I surrounded myself with. Without a relationship with God I was unable to use proper discernment, and understand the consequences of not guarding my heart. The devil knew my weaknesses and attacked in every way I allowed. I allowed what felt right to me instead of what was right by God. I knew of God but did not have a relationship with him, I heard the word at church, but was not listening. “ For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn and I would heal them” (Matthew 13: 15). Below are three ways on how I turned from evil and began understanding the importance of keeping watch:

• Through repentance, I was resurrected. God shows us mercy and grace through the revival of our hearts. As we turn from evil our spiritual eyes begin to see. “But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear” (Matthew 13:16)

• Through Reading, I was restored. I began to understand the word and experience what God had designed for my life. I became good soil for the word to grow and the Gospel of God to be spread. “ But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown” (Matthew 13:23)

• Through Prayer, I was connected. I began to recognize God’s presence and began to experience true peace. “You will keep in perfect peace, him whose mind is steadfast, because he trust in you” (Isiah 26;3)

“And the Peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus”(Philippians 4:7). Understand God can and God will not just for me but for all.