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Guard Your Heart

“Oh, that just breaks my heart!”

Lately I have found myself saying this frequently. When I hear about a young person ending their life, acts of racial hatred, persecution of fellow believers for their faith in Jesus, these all touch me to the core and break my heart. There is so much hurt and suffering in the world.

Our Women’s Community Bible Study has been studying “The Son of David: Seeing Jesus in the Historical Books” by Nancy Guthrie. One of the themes repeated in these Old Testament historical books is the pattern of ignoring God’s commandments and the resulting suffering that ensues. One of the ladies in our community Bible study said “where minds focus, hearts follow”. That struck me profoundly. When my mind strays from my first love – Jesus – my heart follows resulting in actions that are sin. As a follower of Jesus I must guard my heart.

That leads to the question – where is my mind focusing?

I can fill my mind with all sorts of things, some good, some clearly bad, and some things that start out good yet become bad as those things take up too much space. If I think of my mind as a container of thoughts and images, the content is constantly changing as I go through any given day. Thoughts and images are crowded out as new ones are taken in. As I make choices about what I focus on – consciously or unconsciously – my mind is forming ideas, attitudes, responses that ALL affect the disposition of my heart.

If I spend significant time on social media, podcasts, streaming news sites, on-line shopping sites, etc. – all these will fill my mind and take up room that could be filled with spiritually beneficial thoughts and images.

Paul cautions us in Philippians 4: 8-9 ESV

8 And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. 9 Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you.

Paul is encouraging the Christians in Philippi and says – “One final thing”… so it must be important! Paul asks us to “fix our minds” – focus – on what is

TRUE

HONORABLE

RIGHT

PURE

LOVELY

ADMIRABLE

EXCELLENT

WORTHY OF PRAISE

I found the Amplified Bible translation of verse 8 especially meaningful.

8 Finally, believers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable and worthy of respect, whatever is right and confirmed by God’s word, whatever is pure and wholesome, whatever is lovely and brings peace, whatever is admirable and of good repute; if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think continually on these things [center your mind on them, and implant them in your heart].

How practical! For instance if my thoughts are “right and confirmed by God’s Word” then I can trust those thoughts. If I am anxious and worried, then I am certainly not focusing on things that are “lovely and bring peace”. Yet what about the reality of suffering the loss of a loved one, the pain of illness or accident? Am I expected to ignore the reality of that suffering? No.

Paul says in II Corinthians 10:4

4 For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. 5 We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,

Paul challenges us here to “take every thought captive to obey Christ”. The suffering is real and suffering is the result of living in a broken and fallen world. Yet the TRUTH of God’s plan to redeem everything, including each of us, gives us hope. Until we eventually experience that full redemption our responsibility is to align our thoughts with God’s word to guard our hearts and minds.

This is the challenge for each of us moment by moment – day by day. As my friend said – “where our minds focus our hearts will follow.” My heart will still break at the suffering all around me. Yet when I fix my mind on God’s sovereignty and implant His Word in my mind, my heart will follow.

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Fresh Eyes

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I enjoy putting puzzles together in the winter. When I can’t be outside – or don’t want to be outside because it is too cold – I will get out our folding table, sit by the fire and work on a puzzle. This picture shows my most recent effort. It is a 3-D puzzle of a castle in Germany. It was a real challenge and I found myself staying up later than my normal bedtime “just to find one more piece”. HA! Twenty or thirty minutes later I was still looking for that elusive piece.

Something interesting occurred. I found that often the next day I would look at that puzzle and quickly see the piece I had fruitlessly been searching for the night before. There it was! Right before my eyes!

The difference was that I began looking with “fresh eyes” the next day.

That realization caused me to reflect on other situations where I felt “stuck”. I thought about some problem that I seemed to return to over and over again and seem unable to resolve. Would applying “fresh eyes” to that situation help me find the “missing piece?”

Our lives at times appear to be “puzzles”. We are not sure what God is leading us to do or what direction He wants us to take. So we may stare at the situation, determining to see more clearly. We focus on the problem, pray, read scripture, pray some more – yet we just can’t seem to find the answer we are looking for.

King David cries out to God for an answer in Psalm 22 –

1 My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?
Why are you so far away when I groan for help?
2 Every day I call to you, my God, but you do not answer.
Every night I lift my voice, but I find no relief.

The next verses show a shift in David’s viewpoint. Instead of looking at his situation, he turns to God with fresh eyes. He then says –

3 Yet you are holy,
enthroned on the praises of Israel.
4 Our ancestors trusted in you,
and you rescued them.
5 They cried out to you and were saved.
They trusted in you and were never disgraced.

God is God – we are not. God’s ways are not our ways. David was able to shift his eyes from his distress to the holiness of God. To be fair, we don’t hear from David that he was immediately delivered from his problem, or that that there was a resolution that pleased David. Yet David’s willingness to acknowledge God’s holiness and God’s faithfulness in the past gave him fresh eyes to see his present situation.

I must admit that I have been discouraged by the divisiveness of the political situation all around us. I have needed “fresh eyes” to acknowledge that God, the creator and sustainer of the universe, sees what is going on, and will show Himself faithful to accomplish His perfect will in His perfect time.

I don’t need to keep looking for that missing piece – God has it in His hand ready to place it just where it belongs.

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Moonshine

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We had a full moon Sunday night, February 1. I saw the moon outside our window and marveled at the brightness. As I went outside the cold hit me, it was about 16 degrees when I took this picture. The snow was reflecting the light of the moon so it was very bright outside. The silhouette of the bare tree branches and their shadows made a beautiful image.

It was cold yet I was drawn to the silent beauty and lingered outside taking in the brightness of the moon and the shadows created by the shining full moon. The moon has no light source of its own, it is a cold dark rock orbiting around our planet. The moon reflects the light from the sun, which at this full stage of its phases is so bright that it glows. The reflected light spread all around making it seem like day instead of night.

I hear many people saying how “dark” our world seems now. If we read or listen to the news it IS dark in many ways. There are wars and rumors of war. There is violence and rebellion all over the world and even within our very own nation. I won’t dwell on the darkness except to acknowledge that it is evident if we open our eyes.

Jesus came to earth in a time full of darkness. The Roman empire controlled Palestine as part of the vast area under its domain. Roman soldiers would do as they pleased to maintain their authority and everyone lived in fear. We may feel our world is a fearful place now and it certainly is for many people. Sin always results in darkness. In John chapter 8 Jesus has just been confronted by the Pharisees who challenged with his authority. Jesus has been teaching and spreading a message of hope and redemption.

12 Jesus spoke to the people once more and said, “I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won’t have to walk in darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life.” John 8:12

Jesus came to bring LIGHT into the darkness. Jesus is the source of the Light. In the passage of Scripture we refer to as the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells His followers that they are the Light of the world. Just as Jesus shines in the darkness of this world, when we become followers of Jesus, he shines his light through us. Matthew 5:14-16

14 “You are the light of the world. A city situated on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 No one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket, but rather on a lampstand, and it gives light for all who are in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before men, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven. Matthew 5:14-16

That beautiful moon has no light source of its own – it reflects the light of the sun. We humans have no light source of our own – we reflect the Light of the Son – Jesus, when we accept him as Savior and Lord. We must let our Light shine in the darkness of our world knowing as John says in John 1 – ” 4 The Word (Jesus) gave life to everything that was created,
and his life brought light to everyone.
5 The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness can never extinguish it.“

LET YOUR LIGHT SHINE!!