Guard Your Heart

Guard Your Heart by Steve Green was a song I listened to as a young adult/college age. It’s a beautiful song, reminding us that we need to guard our hearts because the heart is easily swayed, and the outcome can cause us pain that could have been avoided. So, it got me thinking about how the Bible defines ‘heart.’ According to Logos, the heart is defined as “the locus of a person’s thoughts (mind), volition, emotions, and knowledge of right from wrong (conscience) understood as the heart’. Whelp that pretty much covers everything. Ha, mind, emotion, and knowledge.

Prov. 4:23 says, ‘Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.’ We already know what heart means, but let’s break down the rest of the verse. The phrase ‘with all diligence’ in Hebrew means above all keeping. Wow! It’s the priority. Diligence means guard. Issues mean source or starting point. This verse tells us the importance of guarding our hearts (thoughts (minds), emotions, and knowledge) under control above everything else. It is the priority. It’s the starting place of our downfall if we aren’t diligent about it. It’s so easy not to be. It’s everything that we say, do, or hear. It’s the negative thoughts that we let take root in our hearts. It’s not always the visible part of our lives (seen by others). That’s why in Ps. 51:10, the psalmist asks for help!

Ps. 51:10 ‘Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.’ Create means to bring into existence. Clean means morally clean (isn’t that very specific!!!) Renew means restore. Spirit means the animating force of a person or deity. Interesting to note that the psalmist asks God to ‘create’ a clean heart. Know what? It’s not natural. God needs to help us, and it’s not a one-time thing. It needs to be restored/renewed.

I can look at these as depressing and think I’ll never get it under control (whatever I’m struggling with) OR look at it as God will help me when I fail; He will renew my spirit within me. He will help me to guard my heart!!