Okay girls, let’s talk about guarding our hearts. Before I lose you, hear me out on this. I, of all people, need to hear this and I hope it will be just as useful to you. I think we go through relationships thinking, that we are guarding our hearts, when we really have no idea how to. We don’t see the difference between telling ourselves we need to guard our hearts and actually guarding ourselves. If you are anything like me, you are not even sure of how long you are to guard your heart and to whom you are to guard it against. This blog post will not give you all of the answers, shooot, it might not help you at all; but it certainly gave me some thoughts to pray through. I only hope it does the same for you whether you are a female, male or a unicorn.
1. Not a 4.0 so far?
I hate to be the one to break it to you. But we have this heart to guard and we cannot get out of it. We are told it’s the very center of us. (Psalm 4:23) But how do we possibly guard it against the breeze we desperately open the window for? If you struggle with this the same way I do, you feel as though you are being graded with an “F” in guarding your heart these days. Whether you are single or in a relationship, you have to do it. You think (or rather convince yourself) no guy will ever be captivated by me and as soon as one nearly grins at you, you prepare a four course meal with the night’s special a-la-heart. How can we possibly help ourselves from giving our hearts so freely when we don’t even notice we are? I mean, we are girls (no offense).
2. All that advice you are given-What is a girl to do?
Between the, “Guard you heart, let him chase you, control your emotions, be patient, and he should pursue you” isms, you don’t even know what to do anymore. Between the silly advice your friend’s give, the little tid bits of wisdom you receive from ghosts of courtships past, and the will of God, you have a lot to decipher. We place so much emphasis on what others tell us. As soon as something big happens, we tell someone! I know for me, as soon as something comes up I run to text a friend about it, rather than praying. What’s so wrong about that? I don’t even give myself time to guard my heart and unfortunately, our friends are not always so helpful in that! The most important advice I have for you, pray! Even when you don’t feel like it, even when you don’t want to. Submit to God’s will. Place his desires above your own. Easier said than done, I know!
3. Finally, how do you really guard your heart?
To be entirely honest, I don’t want to guard my heart. I want to give it away. That is what I was made for. But I have it backwards, I was never meant to give my heart away to man (nor woman). I was created to give my heart to God. Wholly and always to Him. So if you feel the same way, how do you guard your heart when you want to, but have no desire to at the same time. You guard it with scripture. Do you spend more time thinking about the man of your dreams, or the man in your life, than you do thinking about the one who loved you first? Afterall, it says in Deuteronomy to love the Lord your God with all your heart. (Deuteronomy 6:5) It doesn’t say with a fourth of your heart or half heartedly.
I was in a Bible study a few weeks ago and we were talking about spiritual warfare. The verse Psalm 4:23 came up in our workbook which says, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” I was struggling particularly that day, with guarding my heart and understanding how to guard it. Then it all suddenly made sense. Here we were talking about knowing scripture to stand against the enemy, when I realized scripture can be used for so much more. I have always loved the verse where the Psalmist says, “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.” (Psalm 119:11) When we know God’s word, do we not come to know God better? His heart for us has been written down and so often we don’t take the time to read it, me included! When I find myself so eagerly ready to give away my heart, I begin to remind myself of verses that I committed to memorization. When I do this, suddenly my mind is no longer on the things of this world, but focused on God.
He’s Always Enough,
Liberty
Liberty Stripped of her Pride 