Love Lockdown

Divas of the Divine--Spirit Snack

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

--Proverbs 4:23 (NIV)

Today, as I was reading my daily Proverb (Proverbs Chapter 4), I came across this verse, admonishing us all to GUARD OUR HEARTS. I paused here, and had to consider, what the author may have meant in his warning.

Love Lockdown

On the surface, I imagined that it was a warning against situations and people who may break our hearts. Having recently suffered from my own personal heartbreak, I reasoned that maybe God is urging us to use wisdom to avoid emotional entanglements that may leave us feeling depressed, disillusioned, and just plain drained. But on the other hand, it is easy to use a past hurt as an excuse to avoid new relationships.

When you are deeply hurt, it is a perfectly normal defense position, to build an emotional wall, preventing anyone else from getting in to hurt you again. But I have to ask myself, is this Godly?
When asked about the greatest commandment, by the Pharisees, Jesus responded in Matthew 22;36-40:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.

The love that Jesus calls us to is a self-sacrificing love. Not the kind of love that permits walls of defense. The sort of love Jesus calls us to have toward one another is described in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. (emphasis mine)

This is a supernatural kind of love, especially when you have been hurt. You can only love like this, through the power of God's Spirit. Being able to love even after you have been hurt is sort of like proof that we are followers of Christ. John 13:35 says "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

You are What You Eat

Well...if Proverbs 4:23 is not warning us to put up our defenses, when it comes to relationships, what could it be saying? I believe, the point of this verse can be plainly expressed in the following story:

An Cherokee Proverb: The Two Wolves

An old Cherokee was teaching his grandchildren about life. He said, “A battle is raging inside me…it is a terrible fight between two wolves. One wolf represents fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego. The other stands for joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.”
The old man looked at the children with a firm stare. “This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person, too.”They thought about it for a minute, and then one child asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”
The old Cherokee replied: “The one you feed.”

In other words, we should guard our hearts from things that will "feed" the flesh; those things that lead to "fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego."

In Mathew, 12:34-35, Jesus said "For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him."

Today, I was at the beauty salon, and the women and I were discussing the tremendous power of music to change or even control your mood, thoughts, and actions. Have you ever heard a song, and immediately felt pumped, sad or even angry? Music is something that has the power to feed our hearts. If you feed your heart too much of the wrong sorts of things, including music, it will defile you.

This is not just a commentary on popular music. We have to guard our hearts from all sorts of influences that will "muddy" our wellspring of life. These negative influences could be television shows, songs, magazines, books, and even people who lead us to have hearts filled with "fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego."

So the question is...What things do you need to guard your heart against?

Click the above photograph to save this image as your desktop wallpaper.