Proverbs 4:23 “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.”
One of the advantages of living in a developing country like Burundi is that out here we’re not bombarded relentlessly with the same number of scantily clad women selling whatever product has nothing to do with their beautiful bodies. But wherever we are, adverts constantly seek to sow a sense of inadequacy, lust and greed in us for whatever the advertisers want us to buy. I know a married couple who regularly pause the television with their kids to discuss the advert they’ve just seen. They ask the question: “What was the lie in that advert?” They’re trying to get their kids to think, to discern, and to guard their hearts.
John Eldredge wrote: “We are at war, and the bloody battle is over our hearts. I am astounded how few Christians see this, how little they protect their hearts. We act as though we live in a sleepy little town during peacetime. We don’t. We live in the spiritual equivalent of Bosnia or Beirut. Act like it. Watch over your heart. Don’t let just anything in; don’t let it go just anywhere. What’s this going to do to my heart? is a question that I ask in every situation.”
You know the experiment with the frog in a pan of water? If you put a frog in a pan of boiling water, it obviously jumps out immediately, because the water burns it. However, if you put that same frog in a pan of cool water and just raise the temperature slowly, it will sit there until it is boiled to death. It just doesn’t notice the heat rising. Amazing! And that is how many of us are getting taken out today. What we would have been shocked at just five or ten years ago no longer gets us jumping out of the pan, we just sit there… In what ways am I like that frog today? Please, please, feel the heat!
Lord, I choose to guard my heart today, Amen!
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