Guard your heart

Guard your heart. This phrase has been recurring to me in recent weeks and I’ve been pondering what it means. I found it in three places in the Bible:

1. Proverbs 4:23 says guard your heart above all else (with all diligence) because your heart determines the course of your life
2. Malachi 2:15-16 instructs twice to guard your heart – so that you can remain loyal to the wife of your youth, and so that you do not become unfaithful to the wife of your youth, so that you’re careful to keep your promise and not deal treacherously with the wife of your youth
3. Philippians 4:6-7 says when you pray, petition God (with supplication – a humble, earnest, and specific plea for help born out of a sense of personal need, lack, or urgency) and with thanksgiving, the peace of the Lord will guard your heart as you live in Christ Jesus

So, one is linked to how we get wisdom and understanding for life; another is linked to marriage and divorce; and the other is linked to conquering anxiety and worry. These are all different situations but all very important if we’re to live successful lives. The question then is what does it mean to guard your heart?

To guard is an action word, a verb. The goal of guarding is to protect something, to prevent anything evil/destructive from getting past, to be on the lookout for threats and potential threats. This is a very serious responsibility, one that you cannot do haphazardly but continuously. In fact, it is so important that Proverbs says when you guard your heart, do it with all diligence – not sloppily or lackadaisically but very seriously because what you’re guarding determines the course of your life, affects your success in marriage, and your ability to have God’s peace.

To expatiate on the seriousness of guarding something properly, I want to use the illustration of Ishbosheth. Once upon a time, he was son of late King Saul, enthroned King of Israel by Abner (military commander) after Saul’s death while David was King in Judah. The story in 2 Samuel 4 is about how Ishbosheth died. His legendary army commander, Abner, had just been killed by David’s men in revenge, an act which posed immediate threats to Ishbosheth’s kingship. While Ishbosheth and all of Israel’s heart was paralyzed with fear upon receiving this news, the King didn’t take any seemingly clear measures to protect himself.

• Firstly, he appears to have been a lazy king who often took a nap at noon time.
• Secondly, why did he have only one doorkeeper in times of war?
• Thirdly, he didn’t seem to have taken any serious measures to shore up his security – his doorkeeper was a woman who wasn’t fully committed to her job at the king’s door and split her time sifting wheat. She unfortunately fell asleep doing her side job which allowed two of the king’s soldiers to slip past her to kill Ishbosheth and cut off his head whilst he was asleep at noon time in his bed.

This tells us how important guarding something is. Given the context of the time, the King’s safety should have been paramount. But his security was porous, lax, and distracted. This is not how to guard something very important.

The Bible cautions us about how crafty the attacks of the devil can be, and why we must be on guard always.

• 1 Peter 5:8-9 says: “Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls (to move around quietly and carefully in a place, trying not to be seen or heard, usually while looking for prey, a target, or an opportunity) around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Stand firm against him, and be strong in your faith.”
• Matthew 12:43-45 also cautions us that when an unclean spirit leaves a man, it often tries to return with more spirits, more wicked than itself. And if that man is not on guard, if he is not putting on the whole armor of God (truth, righteousness, the gospel, faith, salvation, the Holy Spirit, and persistent prayers), his state will be worse than it was initially.

With guarding one’s heart, we are cautioned to monitor carefully everything that influences it. The reality is that our heart is influenced by at least five avenues: our eyes (what we see/read/look at), our ears (what we listen to), our nose (what we inhale), our mouth (what we eat/drink/put in our mouth), and our sexual organs (what/who/how we have sex). And God is telling us not to allow just anything pass through these avenues. We should take particular care in deciding what we watch/read/look at, listen to, and inhale. We should be careful what and how we eat/drink, and not become gluttonous like the people of Sodom and Gomorrah who were destroyed for excessive eating (Ezekiel 16:49). We should be very careful with sex and things that fan lustful passions – fornication, pornography, pre-marital sex, orgies, unnatural sex, homosexuality, adultery, immoral conversations / company etc.

Over the span of our lives, we all get influenced by so many things. Early on, it’s our parent’s responsibility to guide us properly. But there’s only so much they can do. After some time, whether your parents did a good job or not, you cannot continue blaming them forever and it becomes your responsibility to change your life for the better. This is not an easy task and is why God calls us to guard our hearts very carefully.

Be very intentional about your thoughts and actions. Don’t let lustful, angry, anxious, depressive, jealous thoughts linger. Be careful about the company you keep. Be careful what you’re discussing with your friends. Be careful where and how you spend your time. Be careful with sex. “Rejoice, O young man, in your adolescence, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your [full-grown] youth. And walk in the ways of your heart and in the sight of your eyes, but know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment. Therefore remove [the lusts that end in] sorrow and vexation from your heart and mind and put away evil from your body, for youth and the dawn of life are vanity [transitory, idle, empty, and devoid of truth]. [II Cor. 7:1; II Tim. 2:22.]” Ecclesiastes 11:9-10 AMPC. Also study Proverbs 7:6-27 which cations the foolish young man against his desires for the immoral woman.

Ultimately, Psalms 1:1-6 tells us how to guard our hearts: “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and in His law he meditates day and night…” You can see here that the path to destruction is a progressive one. Initially he’s walking but then he stops to stand and he finally gets so comfortable with sin that he’s seating. To counter this progressive slide, the Bible urges us to:

1. Delight in spending time studying the word of God daily, and
2. Meditate in the word of God day and night. Biblical meditation is neither about emptying your mind nor simply just thinking. Meditation means storing God’s word in your heart/memory and ensuring that it does not depart from your mouth. Meditating on the word of God means confessing it regularly, speaking it out loud, concerning your life and situations, vocalizing it etc. Job 22:28-30 – “You will also declare a thing, and it will be established for you; so light will shine on your ways. When they say there is a casting down, you will say there is a lifting up, and God will save the humble person…He shall deliver him by the pureness of his hands” Study more about meditating on the word here.

For more context on guarding your heard, read my previous post on: The power in building the walls of your mind

God bless you.