Why Do You Let Them Steal Your Heart?

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“Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the well-spring of life.” Proverbs 4:23

My mother wrote these words in the front of my Bible. I was in my early teens at the time. How often I wish I had heeded this instruction. There have been seasons when I should have carried His words in my heart instead of the thoughts of THEM. There have been years when I have allowed the words of THEM to assault the deepest treasures of me, instead of guarding what is most precious. It’s been a long road to get my whole heart back. It all started with the question, “Why do you let them steal your heart?”

Poor Boundaries
I’m a self-professed recovering “people-pleaser” and “approval-seeker”. This manifests itself in a variety of ways including: fear of angering others, inability to say, “No,” saying, “Yes” to keep people happy. taking the feelings of others on myself, to name a few. These are all examples of poor boundaries. One of the consequences of having poor boundaries is that we often open up our hearts to assault because we lack the ability to protect ourselves. Sometimes we do not even recognize what is happening until it is too late. We carry the feelings and opinions of others as our responsiblity when God does not intend for it to be that way. It is important to guard your heart. Your heart is a valuable treasure to God.

“When we ‘watch over’ our hearts (the home of our treasures), we guard them. We are to value our treasures so much that we keep them protected. Whatever we don’t value, we don’t guard.” (Cloud & Townsend)

The truth is that many of us do not understand our value. We do not take our worth and importance to God seriously. When we do not understand who we are to God in this world as children of God, as people who claim Jesus Christ as Lord then it becomes all too easy to neglect our hearts. You can’t be lazy about your heart. It is too precious.

When you are lazy or lack intentionality, diligence in regards to guarding your heart – you set yourself up for repeated bombardments, bruising, piercings, and burns. Perhaps you have no clue how to heal what has been harmed nor know how to protect yourself from future attacks.

How to guard your heart. How to take it back.
Step one: Scripture By being immersed in God’s truth you take the first step towards developing the ability to guard your heart and combat lies. Who does God say you are? What does God hate? What breaks the heart of God? What does God say about righteousness, belief, faith, etc.?

A heart surrounded by words of truth, thoughts of truth, beliefs founded in truth will be able to combat lies and pretense, and the schemes of Satan. A life founded in truth who has established strong boundaries founded in God’s word will learn to recognize the potential for harm even when these assaults come from the mouths and actions of those we trust. The enemy of our hearts is set against truth in our lives. If we do not seek to protect the our hearts while learning how to guard what is precious… What hope is there for the “life” that flows from it?