Sometimes I wish that Chuck Norris were my dad…
…that anytime a boy wanted to take me out, he would have to come face to face with fear itself. I was reading my Chuck Norris Facts this week and I learned that Chuck Norris doesn’t need to breathe because air hides in his lungs for protection. When I think about “guarding my heart,” a mountainous task that intimidates and frightens me, I wish I could summon the big guys, call for backup, and just all around break out some Chuck Norris on the guys that come showing up red on the radar of my heart.
Fortunately, even though I cannot call on Chuck Norris as my personal “heart-guard,” I have learned over time that I am not left alone to fend for myself in these tender matters. That is great comfort to me as I grow in love.
Yet still I ponder: what does it mean to “guard your heart”? Anytime I even THINK about dating or even think about just talking to a guy, people constantly remind me to “guard my heart.” But what exactly does that mean?
Let us take a terrifying example from the book Little Women. I initially read this book by Louisa May Alcott as a little girl. I remember loving the book when I first read it and then this Christmas I watched the movie and examined the friendship between Josephine “Jo” March and Theodore “Laurie” Laurence very carefully. They met in junior high, I presume, and they both were tutored at home and they were neighbors.
Laurie would come over and perform skits and play with all four of the March sisters. He often would go ice-skating and take walks with Jo, just the two of them. They were friends all through high school.
After Laurie graduated college, he came back with a bouquet of flowers, took Jo for a long afternoon walk through the forest, gave her a kiss and proposed marriage to her on the spot. He confessed his undying love for her and said that he loved her from the first day he met her.
Sadly, Jo refused him.
Jo did not return the feelings and flat out told him that she couldn’t marry him.
The scene made me want to cry. I love friendship so much—I love to be friends for always—and I hate to see guy-girl friendships ebb and flow and grow, and then sometimes tragically end. And this is what happened in Little Women. Fortunately, Laurie went on to marry Jo’s younger sister Amy, and everyone was able to continue being friends, but you know it had to have been rough for awhile and especially for Laurie! So we will just take this example from Little Women to represent the guy-girl friendship that goes on for years and years and then one person falls in love, and the other person does not. It’s absolutely incurable and to this hardship, I have no advice or recommendation except for to pray your heart out that this does not happen to you!
Don’t worry about anything. Instead pray about everything. If you do this, then you will, experience God’s peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you trust in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:6-7, NLT
So, I may not have Chuck Norris to call on as my personal “heart-guard”, but I do have God and that makes a huge difference when it comes to the delicate and at times confusing matters of the heart. I know it is not easy to connect with other people, but I do know that prayer is essential to keeping my heart in a healthy place. Proverbs 4:23, “Above all else, guard your heart, for out of it flow the issues of life.” NLT. We may try to guard our hearts ourselves and protect ourselves from pain, but that is not the point. The Lord wants us to trust Him and know Him in all of the ups and down of life and that includes everything. EVERYTHING. He wants to be our guide and our guard. He wants to be our first love.
This is just the very beginning of a long discussion and I’m interested in learning your thoughts on this. What do you think about “guarding your heart”? Have you received or read advice on this topic? Is it possible? Does it make a difference?
Next time, I’d like to use another example from literature and show two contrasting views of heart-guarding, in the mean time, let me know your thoughts.
Jen,
This article is great, and I think you really landed the end! I was curious what your thoughts are on how the issue of guarding your heart applies to married people.
Hey Mike!
I think that the idea came from the verse that mentions it in Proverbs 4:23 and I don’t think that originally it was meant to apply to dating/marriage situations at all, but rather that inside our heart is where we store the treasures of God’s Word which are truly life-giving to us when we keep them with all our heart. I think that “keeping our heart with all vigilance” refers to protecting our relationship with the Lord and keeping Him first in our lives and in our loves. The two commandments remind us to love God with all that we are and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves and in order to maintain that sense of priority of God-first, we will have to guard our hearts, the inflow, the outflow, and make sure that we are filling ourselves with His Word and staying connected to the Vine, staying connected to Him. If you think about it that way, then EVERYBODY can guard their hearts, married and single people alike. 
That’s good news to me to know that God can take all of it and bring glory to Himself wherever I am in life, as long as I keep my eyes and my heart connected to Him. 
Yippie. This will inevitebly lead to satisfying relationships because it will enable us to truly love other people, obey our parents, submit to our husbands, love our wives, lay our lives down for our friends. It will mean incredible things like we will speak kind and loving words to each other, we will help each other not get into trouble, we will forgive each other, we will…etc, etc, etc. Maintaining this priority does not necessarily mean all roses and daisies all of the time because as we know sometimes “speaking the truth in love” requires us to ruffle the feathers, make people uncomfortable– sometimes being honest with ourselves is quite painful to us– but I don’t think the Lord would have it any other way because it teaches us how to trust Him in all things, the sunshine and the rain, and it allows us to be close to Him, and that is exactly what He wants. 
Have you read Little Men? It gives another beautiful picture of friendship and love.
It is so easy to let our hearts go down any path we ‘feel’ to be right. I like the NASB version…be anxious for nothing but with prayer and supplication let your requests be made known to God, and the peace of God will guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus.
Guard in this passage is the greek “to stand garrison,” a military term, you know, the picture of a military guard not letting the enemy get through. I’ve always taken that to mean we are to “tear down fortresses or any lofty thing that stands up against the mind of Christ.” (Probably breaking all kinds of rules of interpretation here) So I don’t allow thoughts, anxieties, philosophies, temptations to get past the military guard surrounding my heart or mind.
It’s surely worked this way in my life. In times of trouble or moments of temptation, if I pray with a worship of God first (prayer) and then bring my requests (supplications) to Him, my mind and heart have been guarded with His peace. I’m then able to fall asleep, or get through the day much easier.
Just some thoughts…
Thanks so much for your thoughts, Michelle. I love your counsel and will seek to worship first. Awesome reminder.
“What do you think about “guarding your heart”? Have you received or read advice on this topic? Is it possible? Does it make a difference?” (Jen)
This is an interesting topic since defining what ‘guard your heart’ means is the key. Some could simplify this to what we view or hear - but one could also say what we allow into our decision making processes as values is the point.
Violence is a great example. Violence is all over tv, video games, movies, and music - and we can both see and hear this stuff. Some people draw a line in the sand right there and determine they are ‘guarding their hearts’.
However, one can view and hear all those things but never committ a violent crime - but how did they safe-guard their heart then? They looked at the values being taught and compared them with their foundational values (and how this violence looks in reality) and made decision based on the best value at hand (ie: do not react violently but as I want to be treated).
I think ‘guarding our heart’ has everything to do with what values we accept from the teachings of Jesus and how we live those out. Including concepts of forgiveness, mercy, acceptance, compassion, and love. We ‘guard our heart’ by not becoming the value we dislike - and by becoming objects of change in scenarios we see as disastorous. We do not ‘guard our heart’ by becoming like an armed guard - we become guardians via values of ‘one-upping’ the errors we see.
I read a book and I do not remember which one (to my dismay!), but it spoke of guarding your heart as if it were a pretty stream of water. By maintaining the stream and keeping out branches, and leaves, and what-not, the stream maintains its beauty and functionality. I started to think of my heart then as a little aquarium, with little fish inside, and whatever actions I took to guard my heart would be to protect the freshness of the water, and to save the fishies!
haha. Like water, the heart springs forth life (as the Proverb says)…and another proverb says that out of the abundance of our heart, our mouth speaks…and so kind words, greetings, love that comes out of our mouth, is stored inside our hearts. I think it is not only important to be careful what goes inside, but also to keep an eye on what comes outside as well.
Thanks, societyvs, for your thoughts. I look forward to delving into this topic even further!
Oh yes, and Michelle, thanks for your suggestion! I will have to check out the book, Little Men. How sweet.