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Above all else, guard your heart

Writer's picture: Preethi Preethi

After always being told to follow our hearts while we were kids, the irony comes in adulthood when we start to notice our hearts aren't as trustworthy as we once believed.


Many of us learn the hard way about the importance of guarding our hearts after opening them to those who didn’t manage them well. Often, instead of properly guarding our hearts, we end up imprisoning ourselves behind barricades and walls.


But this is not how God created us to act.


A guard is someone who watches over, protects, and controls.

In Proverbs 4:23, when King Solomon advises us to guard our hearts, I believe he wasn’t suggesting we do it alone. We are biased by our desires, so it doesn’t make sense for us to be the sole protectors of our hearts.


Just as a king does not guard his treasure but hires guards or has an army to protect his castle,

we too need help to guard our most prized possessions - our hearts. These boundaries determine who is acceptable to enter our lives and who isn't. However, when these boundaries are not properly enforced, it can lead to unwanted intrusions and emotional turmoil.


Let’s consider an example of what not enforcing boundaries looks like:


Imagine a neighbor who never waters their lawn. Yet, whenever you turn on your sprinkler system, the water spills onto their yard. Your grass is turning brown and dying, but your neighbors look at their luscious green grass and believe their yard is thriving. They don't put any effort into maintaining their lawn, but it looks beautiful because your water nourishes it.


If there were proper property boundaries, you would adjust the sprinkler system so that the water would fall only on your lawn. If the neighbor didn’t water theirs, their grass would wither, and perhaps they would eventually take action to improve it.


Now, applying this boundary situation to our hearts, we face a more complex challenge.

We can't physically place a boundary around our hearts to keep ungrateful neighbors out.

So, if we aren’t fully capable of protecting our hearts, who is?


King Solomon’s advice to guard our hearts was part of a greater instruction.

We must ask Jesus to be the protector of our hearts because He knows what we don’t and sees what we cannot.


We are not meant to guard our hearts by ourselves; we have been designed to ask God for help guarding them. But because we may not know how to do this, many of us end up becoming our own prison wardens, not letting anyone in.


Think about it, God created all the people in the world. He knows them best, so who better to ask for help than from our Creator?


When you let God guard your heart, this looks like discernment, setting emotional boundaries, and testing the fruits of the Spirit.


When God guards your heart, He allows you to sense people’s characters.

He gives you the gift of knowing who to open your heart to and how much to open it.

This natural process only happens when we release control and give it to Him.


So, next time you’re contemplating letting someone into your life—whether in a relationship, friendship, or business opportunity—ask God to give you the eyes, ears, and spirit of discernment to perceive someone’s true character. This wisdom isn’t ours; it is God’s gift to help us know whether to let someone in or keep them at a distance.

Trust God to take care of your heart; just let Him in and let Him become your guard.



I hope this message blesses and encourages you.

Feel free to share with a friend.


-Preethi




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