Meditation on Guarding Your Heart

“Guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life” Proverbs 4

I have always liked this verse. You hear it quoted a lot on occassions where you need a bible quote to encourage people. A lot of us like its sentiment, but if you are like me you have not given a lot of thought to what it means. So lately, I have been spending a little time pondering what it means to guard my heart.

The first question I asked myself is “What does the bible mean by heart?”. When most of us think of hearts, especially around Valentine’s Day we think of love. While we certainly love with our heart, the Biblical meaning of “heart” is much bigger than that. My help in understanding the Biblical picture of what the Bible means by “heart” is in looking at the Latin word for heart. The Latin word for heart comes from the same word as we get the word “core” (think of Spanish “corazon”). When the wise man in the Book of Proverbs says to guard our hearts, he is encouraging us to guard the core of who we are.

So, when the Bible says to guard you heart, what it is really saying is to guard the core of who you are, and to not let the core of who you are become corrupted or polluted. We must guard the core of our convinctions, the core of our beliefs, the core of our lives by living and breathing and basing our whole life on those core values and beliefs.

In the New Testament, there is a story about two sisters. One sister, Martha, is busy trying to take care of everything for everyone. The other sister, Mary, is taking the time to attend to Jesus, to sit at his feet, to learn and grow and be in relationship with Christ. Martha scolds Mary for not helping her. Then Jesus takes the defense of the sister sitting at Jesus’ feet, telling the Martha that Mary has chosen the one thing most necessary and important.

Mary chose to guard her heart. Mary chose to make sure that the wellspring of life in her soul was well taken care of, so she could have something to offer others. Mary paid attention to what her core relationships and convictions were, and did not waiver.

We should all do the same