Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.
-Proverbs 4:23
Ever find yourself wrestling with a decision where your mind is struggling to guide your heart, but your heart won't listen - deeming prudence as the enemy to desire? Think about it. How many times have we knowingly understood something to not be good for us, but struggled to turn away from it, let it go, or just simply STOP ourselves?
Let’s be real! It happens to all of us and usually centers around relationships or things that we've allowed to entangle us, later causing us grief. Entanglements can be imperceptible or blatantly obvious. Either way, they generally commence after we've allowed our senses – what we hear, see, taste, touch, and smell – to become joined with our heart – the seat of emotions, feelings, and reasoning.
Together, the conception produces an emotional entanglement or stronghold that is sustained through yearnings, cravings, longings, and the like. For this reason, we grapple with saying "No" to things we knowingly don't need and shouldn't have, such as that second brownie; the shoes we must have, but really don’t need; or that person we know we shouldn't get involve with.
Regardless of how an entanglement is established, rarely is it combed out easily. Disentanglements generally require time coupled with dedication, effort, diligence and prayer when changing a bad habit or unweaving your heart from another. To this resolve, comes a principle "Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life."-Proverbs 4:23. Guarding your heart involves setting a constant watch over what you allow to penetrate and reside in your heart. It requires constant surveillance – keeping what is good and beneficial while discarding what is bad and detrimental.
If you're finding yourself struggling to make the right decision when presented with temptation, examine what's in your heart and start the process of discarding. Take notice of what you spend time thinking about and ask yourself why. Employ the principle of guarding your heart – your mind, will, and emotions – paying close attention to things you tend to easily gravitate toward. And remember, we are the watchmen of our own heart and should guard against the many influences in our environment that compete for our time and attention. Our course in life truly depends on it!
