Heart Healthy

"Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it." Proverbs 4:23

Easy words to say. We know what it means to guard something, to lock it up tight behind walls of stone and ironwood gates and courtyards filled with strong-armed and well-armored men. But how does one go about guarding a heart. One's heart, in the non-organic sense, is not easily confined. Even if it were practical to lock ourselves in a tower, which I don't suggest, our hearts would by no means be safe. How do you guard something that is essentially metaphysical?

"Keep your mouth free of perversity; keep corrupt talk far from your lips." Proverbs 4:24

Corruption spreads like bacteria in the blood, fast and hungry and surrounded by delicious things to eat. Bacteria are small, by themselves, they look harmless enough that we might not be able to tell the difference between the flesh-eaters and vitamin K-makers. So it is with corruption, and if we lack vigilance both can slip through cracks in the skin that protects and wreak havoc. The first step obviously then, it to keep them from getting inside.

"Experience teaches us that it is much easier to prevent an enemy from posting themselves than it is to dislodge them after they have got possession." - George Washington

Step I: 
Be careful what you allow yourself to take in. Don't let anything that carries a seed of corruption come inside, no matter how harmless is looks. (Anything by the way, means anything: books, television, speech, relationships, even thoughts, must be monitored for signs of infection and treated accordingly - a simple hand-washing will probably suffice for most things if you catch them in time James 4:8, but for those really tough jobs I suggest some serious knee-time and an industrial strength cleaner. Galatians 4:9, Proverbs 17:3)

"Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you. Give careful thought to the paths for your feet and be steadfast in all your ways. Do not turn to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil." Proverbs 4:25-27

Step II:

Follow through.

Yup, that's it. Decide what you need to do, and do it. Don't be distracted by all the shiny color and sparkle of culture. It's all plastic and plaster anyway. People will think you're strange. That's all right. They might even call you a prude. Heaven knows there are worse things you can be called (unsaved, unrepentant and wicked come to mind). By the way, the word prude is short for prude femme, meaning virtuous woman. Isn't it interesting how culture has taken something good and made it sound bad? Sounds like corruption to me.

The Homosexuality Issue is the not the Issue

Over the last few weeks, I found myself feeling increasingly uneasy, watching the unrest over the issue of homosexual marriage and homosexuality in general. As event unfold it's becoming more and more clear that in order for "everyone" to be free those who don't fall on the right side of this issue are going to be punished unfairly. And that is worrisome.

Then I realized what's going on here. Talk about smokescreens. This isn't about homosexuality; it isn't about marriage, abortion, slavery, genocide, or which version of the Bible you use. The issue is, as always, whether or not we as Christians are going to choose to act like Christ. That's it. Bottom line. God is control. Always. Our job is to share Christ's love with people.

I think personally, my job in the healthcare field has made part of this easier for me. In healthcare you don't discriminate. I've taken care of people who have done drugs while pregnant, who've been imprisoned for rape, who've tried to commit suicide, who are transgender or homosexual, who are alcoholics.... And it doesn't matter. You treat the person in front of you, and you don't judge them or look down on them, because if you did, you wouldn't be able to do the job.

That's the way it should be in our Christian lives. Treat the person in front of you. Love them as the circumstances call for it. I'm not saying you should tell them what they are doing is right. I don't tell patients who use drugs that they are okay to keep on doing drugs. It is going to kill them, and I have a responsibility to warn them of that. But people should learn to care about your opinion, because they care about you, which happens when you invest time into them. It doesn't work the other way around. No one says, "I really respect that outspoken opinion that was thrown at me like a dart, maybe I should get to know that person."

My point being, don't let what society says is the issue confuse you about what you need to be doing. God has already told us what is required. He didn't tell us we were responsible for fixing the world. He didn't tell us we had to run the country the way we want it run. Just imagine if we didn't live in a democracy. If we lived in a dictatorship where these issues weren't even up for a vote, how would that change how we act and think? The ideal answer would be that it wouldn't change our actions at all.

1 Corinthians 13:1-3, 13 (ESV): If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing...so now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is LOVE.