Guard Your Heart

 What comes to mind when you hear these words? 

What do you think of when it comes to guarding your heart?

Proverbs 4:23 says,

"Guard your heart, because everything you do flows from it."

What comes to mind when you think about what this means for your life?

There's all sorts off situations that come to mind for what this means that you could be thinking of.

For a long time when I read this verse, I thought pretty much only about romantic relationships, because that's where I heard this verse used the most. It was a caution against getting too involved with someone until I was married to them.

That's part of it, but there is so much more involved.

The idea of heart here is everything that makes you you. Your will. Your intellect. Your mind. Your emotions. Your passions. Your motives. Your desires. All of that makes up who you are.

This is what we're being told to guard here, because it impacts how we live our lives.

What we do & how we do it is impacted by our hearts. The way we interact with people & form relationships is part of this - whether friendships or other. Even our relationship with God is impacted by this.

Because of how important our heart is to how we live, we're told to guard it. We need to pay close attention to what we're allowing to have influence in our hearts. We can't go through life unaware. It matters.

So, how are you doing at guarding your heart?

Are there things in your life that need to change?

What We're Really Looking For

“We may desire deep friendships, ironclad marriages, thriving children, a secure economy, healthy bodies, a trip to Europe – but what we really want is an encounter with the living God. To be loved known, and seen by Him. We pursue all the other stuff because it’s the stuff that tastes, but Jesus is the One who nourishes.” (Kelly Minter, Wherever the River Runs)

 

Since I first read those words, they’ve been running through my head. Specifically, the short sentence in the middle: “To be loved, known, and seen by Him.” Those words ring true in my life, and in the lives of many people I talk to.

 

We purse all sorts of things in life, as we seek to fill our deepest longings and desires. And ultimately we find that nothing satisfies them for long, if at all.

 

Friends, family, vacations, money, possessions . . . they make us feel happy in the short term. And most of the time, they can be good things in our lives. There’s nothing inherently wrong with any of them. How we use them may be a problem, but that doesn’t make the thing itself a bad thing.

 

The problem is when those things no longer satisfy, when they no longer make us happy, we’re left looking for more. And that is when we can turn to the wrong things, or things that were good to begin with can become a problem.

 

When you get to the core of what we’re looking for – what  we desire – it comes down to wanting to be known, loved, and seen. We want to be known for who we really are – the part of us that we often keep locked deep inside for fear of how other people will see us. We can to be really loved – unconditionally, sacrificially, deeply. We don’t want to go through life feeling invisible – we want our presence to be noticed, to be missed.

 

We seek to find all of these things in so many places that don’t satisfy, when what we really need to do is seek to meet with God. The one place we can be really known, loved, and seen is when we enter into relationship with Jesus. He is the only One who can satisfy those needs.

 

The psalmist put it this way, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” (Psalm 34:8). The psalmist knew and had experienced that God was what would satisfy and he calls us to try.

 

What are you seeking to satisfy your desires?

 

Is what you’re seeking truly satisfying your desires?

 

Have you allowed Jesus to meet you and be the One who knows you, loves you, and sees you?

Pursue a Dream

As I thought about what to post for this day, I found that I was going back and reading some things I had posted since I started this blog. Sometimes when things to write about don't seem to be coming, I find that old posts inspire me. What I found this time, is that one of the posts was the one I wanted to share today.

I originally posted this on November 19, 2011. It's about pursuing our dreams and the excuses we make for not doing so. But, the reality that we can make all the excuses we want, but we have to choose to pursue our dreams even though everything doesn't seem to be right for doing so.

So here's the post I wrote then. May it encourage and challenge you in pursuing your own dreams.

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A couple of days ago, I read a quote that challenged me and made me think. It talked about putting dreams on hold when we have things to work on in our lives.

"One of the lessons I have learned in six and a half decades of life is that very few dreams should go on hold while you improve the shortcomings of your life. ... To be sure, there are times when you need to stop what you are doing and focus on conquering a flaw. But of you wait till all your shortcomings are remedied, you dreams will die. All our advances are with a limp.
If you wait till you are beyond criticism to pursue your dream, you will never do it. You won't marry or stay married. You won't decide to have children or raise them. You won't take your first job or keep it. You won't go into missions or stay there. ... Few things paralyze people more than their own imperfections. And there are always people around to remind you of your flaws and suggest you can't move forward until you're better." (John Piper, Bloodlines)

When I read that, it seemed like all my excuses for not pursuing my dreams were shot down in a couple of paragraphs. How often do we do exactly that? We have a list of things in our lives that we feel we have to fix before we can even begin to think about pursuing our dreams.

And the reality is that when we think that way, we often don't ever get around to pursuing our dreams. We just continue to have more things we need to work on. Or the time it takes us to feel like we have actually fixed anything is just long enough that we lose enough of the excitement for our dream that we don't follow through on pursuing it.

The sentence from the quote that seemed to jump off the page at me was: "All our advances are with a limp." There is incredible truth in that statement. We don't move forward in life perfectly. As we pursue our dreams, we will make mistakes and we discover things about ourselves that we need to change or "fix." We do move forward with a limp. The important thing is that we do move forward.

What are your dreams? Are you pursuing them? Why are you not pursuing them? What would it take for you to begin to pursue them?

A Life Changing Encounter

Another attempt at a bit of more of a story-type approach to writing here . . .

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How am I going to see Him over these crowds? There's no way I can get to the front of the crowd in time to see Jesus before He's gone past. Maybe if I get ahead of Him, I'll be able to get to where I can se Him.

As I ran, I saw a tree that would give me a great view up ahead. It was perfect for climbing and then I could see Him for sure. I climbed the tree in time. I could see Jesus coming now.

Wait! Why is He stopping here? And now He noticed me and is looking up at me.

"Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today."

He said my name. Is He really talking to me? Does He know who I am? Why would He want to stay at my home?

But He is still standing there, waiting for my response. I climbed down from the tree and welcomed Him. This was so much more than I ever imagined. I had just wanted to see Him and now He was coming to stay at my house - He had noticed me.

Jesus doesn't seem to be concerned about the whispers of the others around us either. He's focussed on me, as if I'm the only person there.

Something about Him is different than anyone else I've ever encountered. I can't stay the same after this. It's just not possible.

I have to make right all the wrong I've done. I'll give half my possessions to the poor. I'll pay back all those I have wronged - more than I took from them. That's the only response to His love for me and compassion on me.

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The story of Zacchaeus the tax collector, found in Luke 19:1-10.

I heard this story often in Sunday school as a kid. We even had a song we sang about this story. And in the familiarity of, I've always missed the significance of it.

Zacchaeus was a tax collector. A Jew who worked for the Romans who were oppressing them. He was seen as a traitor to his people. He made his money by collecting more from his fellow Jews than he had to. Other Jews, especially religious leaders, wanted nothing to do with him.

But Jesus chose Zacchaeus out of the crowds of more socially and religiously acceptable people around him. Zacchaeus had just been looking for a way to see Jesus. He hadn't been expecting Jesus to single him out and ask to stay at his place.

But Jesus' ministry was all about breaking the religious and social walls down. Jesus saw beyond the outward appearance and actions, to the heart of Zacchaeus. And Jesus knew it was open to change.

That's what Jesus is all about . . . heart change. He's not after our actions and appearances looking right if our heart isn't also changed.

The Way We Think Matters

I've been thinking a lot lately about the way we think about ourselves. The thoughts that fill our minds. The things we tell ourselves over and over. The things we eventually come to believe about ourselves.

The way we think and talk to ourselves has incredible power. In much the same way as someone else's words can have incredible power in our lives.

If something gets repeated often enough, we begin to believe it. And when we begin to believe it, we live it completely. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

And then we get frustrated because we find ourselves stuck in patterns of thinking and living that we don't like and that we want to break out of, but we don't know how.

I know I've been there. And I know how frustrated I got when I felt stuck like that. I wanted to change, but I didn't know how to change those things, because I really honestly thought the things I was believing and telling myself over and over were true about me and couldn't be changed.

But, the good news is that we can change the way we think. It is possible - even though it may seem impossible at times.

With God's help we can begin to believe and tell ourselves things that are really true about ourselves. We can change our thinking to be in line with what God says about it.

We have to learn to listen to God speak His truth into our lives.

Through His Word.

Through other people in our lives.

Through His voice speaking to us personally.

It takes practice. It take time. But it is possible. Because God doesn't want us to stay stuck in those ways of thinking about ourselves. He wants something to change in us and He will help us to make it happen.

What are the things you're telling yourself about yourself?

What are you believing about yourself?

Do they need to be changed to be more in line with what God actually says is true about you?

Take them to God. Ask Him for His truth. And ask Him to help you believe it.

It's a Heart Issue

This morning as I was reading further in Exodus 20, through the Ten Commandments, I was struck by something. As you read each commandment, it really gets down to being a heart issue. All of them are about the heart.

Sure many of them talk about actions and things we aren't supposed to do. But even with those ones, it really does come down to the heart. Because if our heart isn't right, doing or not doing the right things won't last and won't mean much while they're doing them.

Elsewhere in Scripture, God clearly states that He wants the hearts of His people, not just their actions.
"For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgement of God rather than burnt offerings." (Hosea 6:6)
God spoke these words to Israel when their actions were right, but their hearts weren't.

I don't think God's desire for us has changed. He still wants the hearts of His people over actions that mean little or nothing. And so much of how He calls us to live in this world comes down to a heart issue.

We can do the right thing for a while, but if our heart isn't in it, it won't last.

So, I'm left with a couple of questions to ponder that I'll leave for you as well:

Where is my heart? Do I need to ask God to change my heart so my actions have some real meaning?

Do You Take Care of Yourself?

I spent a couple of days last week in a Mental Health First Aid course. It was interesting and I learned a lot. But there was one concept that kept coming up, that really made me think.

Over and over through-out the course, there was an emphasis on self-care. The idea that we can only help others in their times of need if we're looking after ourselves. If we're always giving and not doing things to recharge, then we're eventually going to have problems giving to other people because we have nothing left to give.

As I walked away from the course, I started thinking about how this idea applies when it comes to other areas of life. It's important for all sorts of things in life.

One of the things that came to mind for me has to do with this blog. If I'm not taking the time to read things others write and to write things no one will see, then I have nothing to give when I write here. That's a little example.

Another thought that came to mind has to do with serving in ministry in the church. I love what I do with leading and helping with women's Bible studies. I love serving the women in my church in this way. But, if I'm not taking time to spend reading my Bible and growing in my relationship with God outside what I do to prepare for that, I don't have much, if anything, to give when I'm involved in those Bible studies.

And if I'm not spending time with friends who I can really talk to and share more details about what's going on in my life, then I don't have much in me to give when I notice a lady at Bible study seems to need someone to listen and care. Because I've been giving, but I haven't done anything to look after myself so I have something to give to others.

It makes me wonder why this is.

Why do we struggle so much with taking care of ourselves? Where does this idea that we need to always be giving come from?

I wonder if maybe it comes, at least partially, from a misunderstanding of what Jesus said in Matthew 22:34-40, where He is asked what the greatest commandment is. Jesus answers this way,

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbour as yourself." (vs.37-29, NIV, emphasis mine)

It's that second part that we need to stop and think about it a bit, I think.

We get the loving God with everything we have part. We even understand about loving others. But, I know for a long time I missed all that Jesus said when He talked about loving our neighbours. Jesus didn't just say were to love our neighbours. He said we were to love our neighbours as we love ourselves.

It's natural to love ourselves and to think of ourselves. We end up in trouble when we do it to exclusion of everything and everyone else. But, maybe we need to take that love we have for ourselves and learn how to love others with it, without ignoring ourselves and our own needs in the process.

We've gotten good at loving others, but in the process we've trained ourselves to put our needs on the shelf and ignore them. But we can only do that for so long before we find ourselves in trouble.

We can't let our needs and thinking of ourselves take over everything. We should be loving and serving those around us. But, I don't think that means we can never do anything for ourselves.

Sometimes we get to a point where we just need to get away from everything that everyone is asking of us. And that's not wrong. I just wonder if we've reached that point, if we've waited too long to start looking after ourselves.

What if we regularly scheduled things into our weeks and time into our lives to look after ourselves. so that we can give and serve others better the rest of the time?

The Desires of Your Heart

"Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart." (Psalm 37:4)

What are the desires of your heart?

That question has a list of obvious and not-so-obvious answers for all of us.

But, there is another question I've often asked myself when reading this verse or hearing someone talk about it:
If this verse is true, then why are there things I desire that I'm not getting?
I've wrestled with this question many times. Often walking away with no real answer to it.

Lately I've been wrestling with it again and I've come to a knew understanding. Oftentimes what I think are the desires of my heart aren't really the desires of my heart.

Let me explain that. When I stop and take a look at what I think the desires of my heart are, I can usually find something underneath them that is really the desire of my heart. I've taken the real desire and looked for ways to meet it and then called those ways of meeting it my heart's desires.

It seems easier to call those things my heart's desires because they're measurable and something that seems attainable. They seem like something I have control over making happen.

But I'm beginning to wonder if in doing so, I miss the ways God actually fulfills those desires of my heart. I get so caught up in looking for one specific way I miss all the other ways God is working.

Maybe that's where you are also. You're not seeing God give you the desires of your heart. And maybe the key is that you're not seeing it because you've confused the desires of your heart with specific ways you think those desires could be fulfilled.

Will you open your eyes to new ways God may be wanting to fulfill those desires?