Guarding My Heart July 16, 08

Not too long after I became, as a friend of mine would call “radically saved,” I remember one of the first Bible verses I learned was the one about guarding your heart. The one found in Proverbs 4:23, which, according to the NIV translation says:

“Above all else, guard your heart,  For it is the wellspring of life.”

 

It seemed for a time that was the Scripture that was on everyone’s lips. I couldn’t go to a church service or a Bible study where this admonition didn’t somehow enter into the discussion. It was like a mantra.

 

“Remember, the Bible says, ‘guard your heart,’” people would say. “Whatever you do, guard your heart!”

 

The context in which most people referenced this verse as well as the way it was always spoken to me lead me to surmise it meant be careful who you let get close to you and be careful what of yourself you give away. In short, guard your heart.

 

To me, the meaning of Proverbs 4:23 seemed pretty obvious and I never thought much about it nor questioned it’s meaning until I started this blog and ran into major difficulty doing what a blogger does, which is write!

 

I wish I had some great excuse for why I haven’t journaled. I wish I could tell you in all truth that there was a death in the family or that I lost my job and have fallen on hard times recently or that a monsoon swept through my city and we’ve only just now regained electrical power or that I had to put my laptop in the shop because I accidentally spilled coffee on it while studiously writing a post for this blog and the liquid short-circuited the wires.

 

Heck, I’d even try the old dog-ate-my-computer bit, if I thought you’d believe something like that was physically possible. Who knows? Maybe for some dogs, it is. But the bottom line is, it wouldn’t be true.

 

The simple truth is that every time I wanted to write, maybe even needed to write, I couldn’t. I’d become paralyzed, as if some invisible force had come over me and was literally restraining me from penning (or in this case, typing) what was on my mind.

 

Finally, after a few weeks of this immobilization, I asked God what was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I write???

 

The answer I received was not only shocking but pretty profound. God told me I couldn’t write because I was afraid of revealing my heart.

 

Aha! I said to God. So the immobilization is fear. That explains a lot. It would explain the feeling of paralysis I felt whenever I even began to think about entering a blog post. But it didn’t explain why I didn’t want to reveal my heart. The Lord chided me about that part as if my unwillingness to reveal my heart were a detriment, a bad thing, which it couldn’t be because the Bible clearly says, “Guard your heart.”

 

See, I realized that even though I thought I was okay with writing about myself in such an open way, I still have trepidation about revealing who I really am, what I really feel and what I really think before an audience who not only knows my true identity but may, in some cases, actually know me on some personal level.

 

Keeping a personal journal where one can spew out all their thoughts and really be real is one thing. Even doing it online under a false name is one thing. But to do it publicly on the World Wide Web under your real name and risk people really seeing YOU is totally another. Surely, God did not mean for me to reveal my heart in that manner. To do such a thing would be folly and it would NOT be guarding my heart.

 

That’s when God got profound on me and blew my mind, as He is apt to do. I want to share what He told me because I believe someone out there who reads it might learn something as I did.

 

God told me that I had been taking Proverbs 4:23 out of context and that while it does say to guard your heart, what the verse actually means is to guard your heart not from revealing your true self to others or from letting someone in, but from the sinful thoughts and ideology of the world, which if we’re not careful, can contaminate us, making our hearts hard, bitter and closed off.

 

So it wasn’t about guarding my heart against letting myself out but against letting the wrong things in.

 

At that moment, God reminded me of what Philippians 4:8 says:

 

“Finally brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.” (NKJV)

 

Then, as I was writing this post, God showed me something else about Proverbs 4:23 I had never looked at. Really, I’d always had the ‘guard your heart’ thing quoted to me and I’d never paid much attention to the verses after it but they keep verse 23 and really the whole of chapter four, in context. The rest of it reads:

 

23 “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.

24 Put away perversity from your mouth; keep corrupt talk far from your lips.

25 Let your eyes look straight ahead, fix your gaze directly before you.

26 Make level paths for your feet and take only ways that are firm.

27 Do not swerve to the right or to the left; keep your foot from evil.”

 

That is most certainly in keeping with what Philippians 4:8 talks about.  

 

For a girl who, along with harboring an immense amount of shame, was taught not to show her true feelings or to air her dirty laundry in public, these two Scriptures working in tandem were an eye-opener. And even though I tried to argue with God that showing my vulnerability could open me up to attack from people, God silenced me by reminding me that remaining hard-hearted definitely left me open for the enemy to attack. After all, God pointed out, how could I really minister to anyone if I was unwilling to talk about my own struggles? How could anyone relate to me or me to them? People are yearning to find a similar voice. But when we refuse to let people know who we really are, how can we expect to ever have that one accord that the people in Acts experienced? 

 

Of course, this doesn’t mean I’m now going to reveal my whole heart on this blog without exercising spiritual discernment or wisdom but it does mean that I understand and trust that I needn’t worry about making myself vulnerable. God will protect my vulnerability in the same way he protected Adam and Eve before sin opened their eyes and they realized they were naked. 

 

So, with my mouth hanging open from the realization of what ‘guard your heart’ really means, I was left with a decision: I could continue to keep writing online and be as honest and transparent as God would have me in the hopes that someone else might be encouraged, or I could not write, keep incorrectly ‘guarding my heart’ and let no one see that I’m a tarnished gem. A flawed saint who, in spite of her love for the Lord, still has bad days, occasionally might still utter an inadvertent curse word under her breath or think an inappropriate thought or experience a momentary twinge of anger, jealousy, pride or any one of the other seven deadly sins. 

 

As you probably have already gathered by the fact that I posted this, I’ve made the decision to let people see me, flaws and all. Honestly, the real me is still buried under a lot of muck. I’m still digging myself out with the help of Jesus and I’ve come to the realization that I no longer want to play a role. I don’t want to act offstage anymore. As Sammy Davis Jr. sang, I gotta be me and if people like the diamond they see, great. If they don’t, that’s okay too. At least what they’re seeing won’t be cubic zirconia.