The Heart of the Matter - Part 1

"The Glory of God is Man Fully Alive" - Saint Irenaeus

Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.

Proverbs four:23 NIV

I employed to read that verse to mean... put up protective walls around your heart and stand your guard since consumers and life will bombard you with messages intended to make you think less of your self and tear you down if you let it. So stay alert and on guard, like a hockey goalie, prepared to deflect any negative garbage that tries to get in.

Even though it's accurate we do will need to defend our heart from negative, even downright evil influences - there's a whole 'nother level of truth being revealed to us here.

Take into account this - what if the one you need to be guarding your heart from is YOU?

Have you ever stopped to notice the fortresses you've erected with the intention of protecting sections of your heart?

We've learned early on how harmful it is to put our hearts out there naked, exposed, and vulnerable. We've had stones and darts and destructive land mines thrown at us when we least expected it and it caused some serious scars.

So, what's our logical, natural recourse? Frequent sense says stand up, take matters into our own hands and get some barriers in place! Don't let it happen once more!

Unfortunately, in our self-protectiveness (dare I say, our attempts to play God in our life) we have turn out to be our heart's own worst enemy.

Satan (the villain of our story) has it uncomplicated. He doesn't even have to work much simply because we're performing his job for him! By walling off in self-protective techniques we are really depriving our hearts of the quite essentials required to remain alive - a SOUL-ish ALIVENESS!

Let's say you had a rare and priceless rose bush that was budded, ready to burst forth in the glory of full bloom. In an effort to protect this treasure of yours from the ravages of the weather and the vicious attacks of bugs that would shred the gorgeous petals, you locked up your rose bush in a closet. Even though you have indeed protected it from the storms of life and the brutal attacks of enemy invaders that could mar the tender bud you've basically developed a much bigger challenge.

Very first, the rose slowly wilts of thirst, and then the leaves turn an anemic yellow from lack of food and sunlight. Lastly, the bud - which held the prospective for unparalled beauty and fragrance when in full blossom - merely droops its head over and withers in sadness. It's nothing much less than a tragedy.

Likewise, the walls around our heart might possibly indeed protect it from some issues, but usually make ones that are far worse... deadly even. And like that breathtaking budded rose protected, but critically deprived of the essence of life, our heart dies a slow, and sadly, unnoticed death. Oh we're still walking around all perfect, but it is nothing even more than going through the motions, day in and day out. Passion, joy and adventure are found only when you lose yourself for a couple of hours at the movies.

"Above all else, guard your heart for it is the wellspring of life"

Believe about that for a minute. Perhaps, what we have to have to be guarding about our heart is what it takes to keep it ALIVE! Maybe, it is a lot more about protecting the life from leaking OUT of our hearts, rather than worrying so much about what could possibly be creeping IN!

I wonder, just how in touch with your own heart are you? (When was the last time you even stopped to believe about it?) What specifically is it about our hearts that is the wellspring of life? What is our hearts equivalent of fresh air, water, food, and sunshine?

Does your heart spend additional time quietly protecting itself in the closet, or OUT THERE, daring to soak in the abundance of life, and love, and beauty, and passion, and adventure, and romance, and everything else?

I know in my own life, and from having dealt with hundreds and hundreds of men and women walking by way of life's stuff, I've found the vast majority of us don't even KNOW what life is like outside of the self-imposed protection of the closet. We've spent so significantly time enclosed in those walls, at many different levels, that it feels Regular. Even if we've worked on this problem in our lives prior to it's uncomplicated to be blind to just how deep our walls can go oftentimes.

So Whatcha Gonna Do With That?

It's not enough to just read about a principle - we have to have to put it into practice in practical approaches and let it work its way into the rather fabric of our becoming so we can truly live it out on a every day basis!

To read even more about this and get some Absolutely free hands-on ideas and down-to-earth methods about how to apply this certain idea to your life, including a model of how to pray about it, click on the link below:

[http://lifewithgoddevotional.com/2007/08/16/the-heart-of-the-matter-component-1/]

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