Three Essential Steps to Guard Your Heart

 Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life (Proverbs 4:23, NLT).

Recent events in our family have focused our thoughts on hearts and heart disease. We have done a lot of reading. While our situation has been unusual, much of the literature focuses on general heart care. When reading, three pieces of advice rise to the surface. Watch the type and amount of food we eat, manage stress levels, and exercise. This seems like such simple advice as I write it, but following can be daunting.

Sometimes I am successful. Sometimes I am not.

Proverbs 4:23 speaks of the spiritual heart.  This instruction to keep or guard the heart follows Solomon’s encouragement to seek wisdom, which tells me it must be a smart thing to do, and it precedes verses that tells me how to control my tongues, my eyes, my feet, and my hands (Proverbs 4).  When I guard my heart, controlling the rest of me becomes easier.

Guarding my heart spiritually does not mean that I avoid all situations that cause angst or hurt, any more than guarding my physical heart means that I avoid sweat and work.  It is not isolation from all things but engagement with the right things.

The steps for spiritually guarding the heart parallel the physical. 

1. Monitor Intake

First, I must monitor what goes into my heart.  What do I watch? How do I spend my time? What do I love? What do I chase? Do I spend time in God’s word and in prayer? 

Colossians 3:1 tells me to set my “affections on things above” referring to the attitudes and characteristics of God.  So, I ask ‘what do I love’; on what is my heart centered?  If my thoughts and affections are caught in the grip of this world, then my heart will be filled with the priorities of this world. My heart will hear the demands of the world over the voice of God.  The result is a clogged heart that is not spiritually healthy.

Philippians 4:8 – 9 gives me guidance on what I need to put into my heart. My balanced heart diet must include things that are pure, honest, good, and praiseworthy. What I allow into my heart will most definitely show on my outside.

2. Manage Stress

I can also guard my heart by managing stress.  Philippians 4:6 instructs me to ‘be anxious for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God”. God calls me to give my stress to Him.  When I lie awake worrying or fretting, my actions show that I am depending on myself more than I am depending on God.  Do I trust Him to care for my children?  Do I believe that He can provide?  Do I recognize the blessings of each day and respond with thanksgiving to God?

Battling the cares of this world alone causes my heart to be overcome with despair and doubt.  God’s way offers peace (Philippians 4:7).

3. Exercise

Then, there is exercise.  I liken spiritual exercise to service.  It is the act of looking beyond myself to the needs of others and seeking to meet those needs.  An anonymous author once wrote “the best exercise for the heart is reaching down and lifting another up”.  Service removes the focus from self to others.  It breeds purpose and fulfillment, and it demonstrates obedience to Christ’s law (Galatians 6:2). 

If I guard my heart well, the evidence will be seen in my daily walk.  I will focus on the Word rather than the world.  I will be at peace when this world’s storms are raging, though this does not mean that I will be immune to the storm. I will be actively looking to the needs of others.

Heart disease, both physical and spiritual is rampant in this world.  So, Solomon’s advice to keep or guard the heart is still good for me today.

When I pay attention to what goes into my heart, allow God to take the cares of my heart, and exercise my heart in service to others, I will find healthy heart rest.

I can use some of that.

How will you guard your heart today?

Photo provided by Pexels