Above All Else, Guard Your Heart.
I’ve gone to what may be considered by some to be extraordinary measures to take care of tomato plants. After a year of having my tomatoes constantly eaten or damaged by birds, squirrels, and who knows what else, I started guarding them early.
Today’s photo shows an example of that protection. Before the plants produced fruit, I put them inside a tomato cage to support the branches in anticipation of them becoming heavy with tomatoes. Then, I placed a plastic fence around the cage to keep animals away.
The support and protection worked pretty well that year. The only problem I had was getting back inside the fencing to harvest the tomatoes. But it was a small price to pay to reap the benefits.
Above All Else, Guard Your Heart. #hope #joy #writingcommunity Click To TweetI believe this is a good analogy for guarding our hearts.
Solomon wrote Proverbs so that we might know how to gain wisdom. Wisdom is the acquired skill of applying knowledge rightly, or what we as Christians call, “godly living”. One important way to gain wisdom is described in Proverbs 4.
“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” (Proverbs 4:23, NIV)
Just as I tried to guard my tomatoes, we must guard our hearts. I used a wire cage, then plastic fencing for the plant. What should we use for our hearts? Let’s see what the Bible tells us. Solomon continues his instruction.
“Keep your mouth free of perversity; keep corrupt talk far from your lips. Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you. Give careful thought to the paths for your feet and be steadfast in all your ways. Do not turn to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil.” (Proverbs 4:24-27, NIV)
Henry and Tom Blackaby share thoughts on guarding your heart in their book, The Man God Uses. I like the way they summarize Solomon’s instruction. “You can determine to guard your heart against those things that would diminish your devotion to God.”1
Matthew Henry tells us about keeping (guarding) our heart in his commentary on Proverbs 4. He says “…there are many ways of keeping things—by care, by strength, by calling in help, and we must use them all in keeping our hearts;”2
I don’t know about you, but I must be diligent about guarding or keeping my heart. My heart, just like everything else about me wants what it wants, and often it wants to say the wrong things, see the wrong things, and walk the wrong paths.
I may try to take care, be strong, or even call in a calvary of friends to help. Why? Because above all else, I must guard my heart.
How about you? How do you guard your heart?
Today’s feature photo comes from a “photo-a-day” challenge I pursued several years ago. The photo inspires the topic. For me, the posts challenge my creativity, writing discipline, and dependence on God for His message. My prayer is that you find hope in God’s Word, and that you’ll share your hope with others.
1 Henry T. Blackaby and Tom Blackaby, The Man God Uses (Broadman & Holman Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee, 1999,) 22.
2 https://www.biblestudytools.com/commentaries/matthew-henry-complete/proverbs/4.html
Tim, good post on a topic never out of season to discuss: the importance of guarding our hearts. I can relate to the “extraordinary measures” taken to protect your tomato plants, although mine were to defeat the clever deviousness of regiments of squirrels, my countless skirmishes with the “shadow-tailed” warriors during the great rodent war of 2012-2014 finally ended in their defeat.
I love the imagery of fencing in your plants to protect them from the assaults of the outside world – it’s very powerful and, it being a theme in both Testaments, quite apropos. For instance, in the OT Satan complains to GOD about the “fence” He placed around Job, the enemy lamenting that because GOD protects Job from the harshness of the world in which he lives that of course Job lives a blameless and upright life because he has nothing to fear because of that “fence” (Jb. 1:10 – NASB). Isaiah talks about our cultivating “vine shoots of a strange god” that we carefully “fence” in to worship, but of whose fruit we can never harvest because life will inevitably reveal the feeble uselessness of their illegitimate grafting (Is. 17:10-11). So, to answer your question – “How do you guard your heart?” – I try my best – usually very poorly mind you – to remember Jesus’ teaching (can’t EVER go wrong by following His example) on the essential importance of placing a “fence” around our hearts if we are to truly live a life of righteousness. The model, for me, is in His teaching on the Beatitudes where He employs a potent “you’ve heard . . . but I say” formulae to illustrate the importance of constructing fences of rectitude around our hearts. So, for example, Jesus teaches you’ve heard it said to not commit adultery, but I say to not even look at another woman with lust as that is the gateway to adultery (Mt. 5:27); or, you’ve heard it said to not make false vows, but I say to not even take an oath at all for they are the gateway to every form of evil and dishonor to GOD (Mt. 5:33-37); or, you’ve heard it said to hate your enemy, but I say to love them and pray for them for it is evidence that you truly are a son of GOD and strive for the perfection He has called us to strive for (Mt. 5:43-48). There are many examples to cite, but you get the picture; place a fence of rectitude around our heart and then never even go near it to rest an elbow or place a foot upon it, for who can resist climbing atop a fence when you rest upon it, and then once straddling it, jump down on the other side? So, to keep me mindful of how important it is to maintain those fences, I use practical tools, e.g., making sure Terri has every password to every account I have, or giving her unfettered access to my cell phone, etc., Terri is, and always has been, my “Calvary.” By the way, she too uses these same tools – our love, trust, and confidence in each other is mutual. Good post Tim – keep up the great work!
I love it Guy! I need you to comment on all my posts! You add such depth to the discussion and are so encouraging to us all. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and examples of your applying that knowledge rightly. You’ve given us some really good things to think about.
My brother, you are way too kind with your words and far too generous with your grace – I’m humbled my friend. Truth to tell, every week my intention is to comment on your blog posts, but I’m still trying to figure out why the physics of time in our house seems to function so much differently than it (apparently) does everywhere else in the world – I’m at a lost to explain how my Monday morning quiet time suddenly turns into church on Sunday morning?? I’m determined to solve the mystery though . . .
You know, the extraordinary thing to me about fences is their dual purpose – something you aptly picked-up on in your post. Just about every one of us thinks of a fence as a means of keeping something out of a protected area, but the truth is that they also protect the things which they surround; the things inside the fence. I think the prophet Isaiah (Is. 17:10-11) best illustrates this: if we endeavor to build and are diligent to maintain a proper theological fence around “GOD in us” (as Dr. David Jeremiah refers to it) to keep out every shape and form of untruth, false-teaching (i.e., truths misapplied) and downright heresy (in other words, those things which deceive us into looking away from or ignoring the One TRUE GOD), GOD “will bring out your righteousness as the light, And your judgment as the noonday” (Ps. 37:6 – though the entire Psalm better makes the point). Your metaphor perfectly illustrates this dual-purpose of a fence ~ “The only problem I had was getting back inside the fencing to harvest the tomatoes.” Of course the sanctifying “art”—for lack of a better word—is in our never making the fence around our hearts so impenetrable that we ourselves are also kept outside of its protection, but that is where our being indwelt by the power of the Holy Spirit who guides us into all the truth (Jn. 16:13) helps us to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling (Ph. 2:12-13).
Thank you Guy! You are right on about relying on the Holy Spirit to work out our salvation. The ultimate protection!
Do not be dismayed, God is in control.
Amen!