Do you often find yourself striving to do too much for too many people? Do you feel adrift, like you’ve lost touch with your purpose, your peeps, or your faith? Or perhaps you’ve grown disillusioned because you’ve been wounded or rejected one time too many? If you said yes to any of these scenarios, you may be forgetting to guard your heart.
“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” ~ Proverbs 4:23 NIV
What does “guard your heart” mean?
The word heart refers to the whole inner person, including personality, intellect, emotions, will, and desires. The heart is the source of the attitudes, beliefs, and desires that guide our decisions, which in turn dictate our actions.
Therefore, the state of our heart colors everything we do and impacts our relationships with God, family, and friends.
“If your heart is unhealthy, it threatens everything else—family, friends, career—everything!” ~ Michael Hyatt
Why do we need to guard our hearts?
Because if we don’t guard our hearts, we expose our inner self to outside influences, including attitudes, mistruths, and temptations that draw us away from our best self and our best life. Ultimately, we protect our hearts from what would undermine our wellbeing and hinder us from following our calling.
We must protect our heart from the influence of:
- The world we live in, which is filled with messages, philosophies, and temptations that draw us away from God and his truth.
- People who take advantage of us, belittle us, or wound us.
- Subtle messages that undermine our self-worth.
- Distractions that keep us from accomplishing our God-given purposes.
- People pleasing and other habits that drain us and keep us too busy to do what matters most.
How to guard your heart
Guarding our hearts means taking responsibility for our mental, emotional, psychological, and spiritual wellbeing. This includes protecting our inner self from external factors that could lead to things such as anxiety, pride, sin, resentment, or burnout.
Guarding your heart also includes proactively doing things that restore you, strengthen you, and promote growth in all aspects of your life.
5 keys to guarding your heart
Monitor your inputs. Everything you watch, read, or listen to matters. The groups you spend time with impact you as well. The subtle messages and mindsets of the world we live in erode our connection to the truth over time. If you don’t want to slowly drift away from your values and dreams, you need to limit unhelpful inputs when possible and intentionally balance the negative inputs with positive ones.
Monitor your outputs: You are responsible for stewarding your time, attention, and energy. If you indiscriminately say yes to every request, you fail to guard your resources for the most important relationships and tasks. Plus, saying yes to everything and everyone leads to stress, exhaustion, and resentment.
Protect your heart from toxic people. Don’t open your heart freely to everyone. Be discerning about who you share personal or emotional information with.
“People who are irresponsible with our hearts should not be granted great access to our hearts.” Lysa Terkeurst
Pay attention to your mental dialog. Don’t allow unhelpful messages to play on endless repeat in your head. Instead, when you catch critical, belittling, or anxious thoughts popping up, gently but firmly switch your focus to a more helpful thought. Refer to these posts to learn more about revising your mental soundtracks, reframing thoughts, or renewing your mind.
Guard your physical heart, too. Practice wise health habits and be mindful of stress. Body, mind, and spirit are all related. When we maintain good health in one area it affects other areas in positive ways.
Your turn
We honor God when we guard our hearts well. What is one habit or boundary you can change that will help you guard your heart more effectively?
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