Guarding Your Heart

I think since the youth group days, the phrase "guard your heart" has rang loud and clear in my ears in regards to any potential relationships that have come along. It's almost become cliche. I've always wondered what that entailed. Was it holding back trust or secrets? Was it just saying, 'I'm never gonna date any one" and then hope with all your might that one day someone will plow you over and magically want to marry you. It was almost like everyone was saying, hold back everything so you won't get hurt. How do you embrace a situation that has so much potential to hurt you so deeply?

I'm not sure why I have not dug deeper to find out what it really meant. My explanations and definitions have been as idiotic to me as they probably were to the people I was sharing them with.

This morning I was having a conversation with a good friend of mine. I honestly didn't feel like talking, but I did anyways - big surprise, I know. We just began chatting about things going on in our lives and that is when the bricks hit me in the head. God has been speaking to me so clearly the last few days - maybe because I'm actually listening? Either way, I feel Him, hear Him, and have seen Him move. I kinda feel like I have just put on a pair of glasses and a hearing aid. In everything He has been speaking has come back to obedience. There are so many times in our lives we feel like doing the complete opposite of what is "too difficult" - at least our version of difficult. The truth is when we avoid the "difficult task", we end up in a mess and have do exactly what we were suppose to do in the first place. Kind of no way to avoid God - not sure why we ever try.

Going back to before this morning's conversation, I was given some words of wisdom last night of "guard your heart". I felt my heart freeze immediately and everything in me said, "You can not do this, so just get out now and run." I couldn't shake it til the conversation this morning. I finally realized why I was guarding my heart. It wasn't for the purpose of relieving my heart of pain or avoiding hurt, it is for the sole purpose to be obedient to God. He comes first. Always. Period. Nothing can come before Him because that will sway our decisions and in turn cause a direct disobedience to what He has spoken to us. This basically means a daily/hourly/minute/second choice to say I will ask for Your direction, I will listen for Your voice, I will do Your will. Most of our tasks are not complicated. They are simple. The struggle between our will/thoughts and His is the biggest battle.

So as you enter a difficult time or come upon a big decision in your life, know that guarding your heart is a conscious decision to choose His will over yours in obedience to Him. In that obedience is so much protection and security for our hearts that we could not even begin to hold up in any situation.