Christian doubt makes you feel the waves and breakers of weakness. If you ever thought you were strong, these seasons of life make you feel like you are on the ocean being tossed back and forth on choppy waters. What is worse is that on many occasions it becomes hard to articulate exactly what is happening on the ocean. You need a trained sailor who has navigated the waters, not just someone who has memorized the map.
Yet, like most other troubles in life, even the person who has been most experienced and can empathize most with your situation can fail at understanding the nuances of your doubt. Someone could listen to you try to articulate your feelings of lostness, darkness, and despair for hours, but you could still walk away with nothing more than sentiments of an empathizer. No doubt, we need community in our struggle with doubt, but there must be sturdier soil on which to stand.
In these dark days, God intends to use your inarticulate prayers. In Romans 8:26-27 Paul has words for the weak saint. He writes,
“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”
Have you ever felt these words in your struggle with doubt? The darkness rolls over your day like a storm from hell, and you get alone to pray – but what do you pray? How do you pray in accordance with God’s will when you feel in the depths of your soul that this is the worst providence you could experience? What do you pray for when you know that you don’t know what to pray for?
Dear brothers and sisters, God knows your soul, for he dwells in you through his Holy Spirit. There is great help in your weakness because your unspeakable groaning is translated into perfect, articulate requests by the Spirit of God. No, you do not know the will of God in these doubting times. But the Spirit is interceding for you according to the will of God. Tom Schreiner writes, “God searches the hearts of believers and finds unutterable longings to conform their lives to the will of God. The Holy Spirit takes these groanings and presents them to God in articulate form” (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, 446).
And the best news is that in your unutterable prayers of deep weakness, the Spirit prays for you with prayers that will always get a “yes”. Why? Because these prayers that the Spirit prays for you is on the same page with the Father. He never prays imperfect prayers – and all this Spirit wrought power is working in your in your weakest moment.
So, keep praying. Pray even when you don’t know how. These bleak moments will be remembered as your most intimate with our father. When you fail, when your friends fail, and even when your very heart fails – there is an answer for you with God. In his Word, and through his Spirit.
I hope you have not bought into the false idea that the season of engagement is a form of hell. Instead of enjoying engagement and using it to grow in godliness, many people waste the engaged portion of their life because they view it as a hindrance and a necessary obstacle to marriage.
We’ve both talked about how marriage is good and perpetual engagement is not. However, I can’t help but notice that discontentment has given you a low grade fever and even made those around you miserable.
Too many single folks pass their days wishing they were married. There are a lot of single people wishing they were married people.
Girls can dream of their wedding day by pinning all manner of things on their social media just in case they happen upon a relationship tomorrow. All the while, the guys spend their time twiddling their thumbs to line up a perfect timeline for the next potential candidate.
Whether people are hanging paper lights on a virtual alter or calculating the perfect proposal for the mystery Mrs., contentment is the missing variable from the equation.
Now the irony here is that I know married people who are just as restless in their dreams. Believe it or not, I have had married friends tell me they wish they were single because they could have more time to read, study, serve, and spend for the kingdom. Yet the greatest irony is that those restless married people were just as restless when they were engaged!
Notice the inevitable cycle: those discontent singles become discontent marrieds. Engagement just happens to be the canal in between. You must stop the cycle before you reach the other sea.
“I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:11-13)
Brother, do not forget that you need contentment most when everything seems to be going your way. Whether you are sky high on the thought of engagement, or in the thrills of marriage, you need contentment just as much as when you are sunken low in the shafts of singleness. Contentment in Christ needs to make its way into every crevice of every circumstance.
Regardless of the ringing of wedding bells or the hollow echo of loneliness, I encourage you to lay hold of the strength of Jesus to be content in Him. Circumstances should not change contentment.
What is the secret to a happy life? Realizing that everything you have and need is found in Christ alone. The happiest people in life are not single or married. The happiest people in life are those who seize each season for the glory of God. The grass is greenest where we graze upon God.
May you enjoy each season to the fullest by enjoying God to the highest.
There’s a lot of advice out there about how to share the gospel. And to be clear, there are many faithful ways to share the gospel and there are different kinds of evangelists. No one should assume that their way is the way to do evangelism, or that they have arrived at the perfect methodology. Yet as I have stumbled forward in my journey to faithfully witness for Jesus, I feel that God has taught me some practical ways to be bold, wise, and winsome. The following are some basic things I try to keep in mind when sharing the gospel with Muslims, hipsters, homosexuals, or anyone who is not yet a believer.
1. Listen Well
A missionary to Kazakhstan once told me that if you’re willing to listen, you’ll always get to share the gospel. I’ve found this to be true. Dietrich Bonhoeffer speaks of listening as a ministry, even as part of how God ministers to us in prayer. By being a good listener, you are ministering to your lost friend and affirming their value in God’s sight. Often, when we have listened well, there is a natural opportunity where our friend will want to hear our take on things. As you have listened well, so then your friend is more likely to give a hearing to what you have to say, rather than just thinking up comebacks in his head while you’re speaking. Listening also gives opportunity to custom-fit your gospel presentation. How many times did Jesus share the gospel the same way? He had perfect insight into the souls of others and he shared the good news of the kingdom differently every time (with the same Jesus-centeredness of course)! To paraphrase Francis Schaeffer, we Christians know the answers, but we often don’t know the questions the lost around us are asking. Listening well enables us to know which aspect of the gospel we should major on, so that, God willing, the truth we share will cut to the heart of our friend. By listening well, we show our friends that we care about them and we lay a foundation for open ears when we talk about Jesus
2. Gossip about Jesus
A lot of Christians put pressure on themselves to get out the whole gospel when they get a chance in conversation. I’ve found it’s more helpful to look for opportunities to share about Jesus, anything about Jesus, even if it’s only one thing, one parable, or one saying. Constantly holding up Jesus as wonderful and powerful lets your friend begin to fall in love with him. We don’t know which things about the gospel will specifically resonate with a specific person. This allows room for the Holy Spirit to give us just the right thing to say. I will often start talking about Jesus in a way that invites my friend to look at Jesus with me, rather than by starting by directly confronting my friend with the gospel. That confrontation will and must come, but often the Holy Spirit starts doing that before I get around to it. When we do confront sin and talk about the gospel’s direct claims on my friend’s life, often the conviction is already there. Have a basic outline of the gospel story memorized (God – Man – Sin – Christ – Response), but don’t be chained to it. Let stories and parables and sayings be fresh on your mind for the Holy Spirit to prompt when he wills. And if you don’t get what you consider the whole gospel in, don’t feel guilty about it. Praise God that you were able to share truth. And think about the richness of the gospel… when have you EVER shared the entire gospel in one conversation?
3. Be a really good friend
Our lives as believers and our love for our friends are two things that makes the gospel seem plausible. The gospel is foolishness to unbelievers, but when heard from a really good friend, and in the context of a loving relationship, it can become beautiful and compelling. Commit to being a really good friend and to pouring into this one person, asking God to save them. With some friends, even if they don’t end up being open, because of your friendship you end up with access to their entire relational network. So your friend might not be open, but if you love her well, she becomes the door to her sister, who is open. Being a good friend is also really important for overcoming all of the false information unbelievers have about Christians and what we believe. Often we are kind of behind from the start. For example, with Muslims we are sometimes presumed to be immoral heretics who believe in three gods – the Father, Mary, and Jesus. Our godly friendship dispels all this false information.
4. Pray radically
Ask God every day to save your friend, to open doors for gospel conversation, and to work miraculously in their lives. God loves to answer these prayers. Don’t forget that Elijah was a man like us. And God can save your friend anytime he wants to. That’s why we ask him to do it! He delights to use our prayers as his means of saving. That means we pray more, not less.
5. Be a gracious host and guest
Hospitality is especially important when reaching out to internationals, but also goes a long way with Americans. Find out what your friends really enjoy and get good at serving it when they come to your house. This could be chai for Middle-Easterners, chemex coffee for the hipsters, or that particular thing you’re friend just can’t get enough of. As God has lavished his gifts on you, lavish your unbelieving friends with food and friendship and a safe place to hang out and talk about real issues. Having gospel conversations over good food and drink lets us be like Jesus, who regularly ate together with sinners and pharisees. When eating out, buy your friend’s coffee or dinner. Tip well and be kind to those serving you. Christians are the last people who should be stingy.
6. Be a Learner
Learn as much as you can about your friend’s life, culture, and background. Learn some of their language if they’re not from your country. Being a learner shows that you value your friend, it affirms them, and it helps you share scriptural truth with insight. One of the the lies the enemy will throw at your friend is that Christians are know-it-alls. Eagerly learning from your friend undermines this lie, demonstrates humility, and often results in an open ear for the gospel. Learn the rules of your friend’s culture or subculture so that if you break them, you are breaking them intentionally and purposefully, and not out of ignorance.
7. Be Authentic There’s no need to keep up appearances. You don’t know it all, you don’t have it all together, sometimes Christian culture is goofy, and yes, you still struggle with sin. Be open about your weaknesses and in the process point to Jesus, the one who not only justifies sinners, but also sanctifies them.
I finally saw the engagement pictures of you and your fiancee. You both look dashing if for no other reason than it is uncontrollably obvious you are both in love. I smiled as I saw the shot of you bowing the knee with ring in hand. Even through the tears, you couldn’t have looked happier.
I recently read an essay by the reformer Martin Luther and a couple of paragraphs caught my eye in light of your recent photos. He connects the gospel to marriage in a way that I had not considered before.
Luther notices that when a couple becomes one flesh, they fully give themselves to each other. The wife gives everything she has to her husband and the husband gives everything she has to the wife.
Our union with Christ is similar. Everything we have (which is sin, shame, guilt and death) becomes Christ’s and everything He has (which is purity, holiness, freedom and life) becomes ours.
Luther writes,
“The third incomparable grace through faith is this, that is unites the soul to Christ, as the wife to the husband; by which mystery, as the Apostle teaches, Christ and the soul are made one flesh. Now if they are one flesh, and if a true marriage, then it follows that all they have becomes theirs in common, as well good things as evil things; so that whatsoever Christ possesses, that the believing soul may take to itself and boast of as its own, and whatever belongs to the soul, that Christ claims as His.”
This is the sweet exchange that Luther is talking about: “If I have sinned, my Christ, in whom I believe, has not sinned; all mine is His, and all His is mine; as it is written, “My beloved is mine, and I am His.””
All of our sins becomes Christ`s and all of His righteousness becomes ours. Many people only think of the gospel as providing forgiveness, but the gospel also gives us the righteous state of Jesus. (2 Cor 5:23) His perfect life becomes our life and our sinful life became His on the cross. This forgiveness and righteousness is only obtained by “the wedding ring of faith.”
Your marriage will not be based on conditions of works. She will not submit a list of good deeds to you at the alter. You may pour sand into a jar, but you will not weigh scales. You will not swap resumes but you will exchange rings. She became your fiancée and wife by a simple pledge of faith.
“Thus the believing soul, by the pledge of its faith in Christ, becomes free from all sin, fearless of death, safe from hell, and endowed with the eternal righteousness, life, and salvation of its husband Christ.”
Brother, as she takes your hand in faith, take the hand of Christ by faith. Pledge your life to him trusting not in your good works or good intentions but only in His perfect life and saving death.
Christ did not buy you with a mere precious metal, but with His own precious blood.
Celebrate your proposal and ponder the greater privilege of being united to Christ.
To conclude with Luther, “Who then can value enough these royal nuptuals? Who can comprehend the riches of the glory of this grace?”
What happens when zeal runs dry? What happens when the faith you have known all of your life becomes your greatest suspicion? The Scriptures are conspicuous and your heart is no longer drawn to the Lord in prayer. Your assurance is shaking like a twig in a hurricane of doubt. All the truth that was so clear, apparent, and true has become clouded with black fog that you’re questioning if you are even a Christian.
And here’s the kicker: you love Jesus. The reason why this desert is so ruthless is because you really are thirsty; nevertheless, you doubt. The feedback loop goes like this: You doubt, feel guilty for doubting, and then despair because you wonder if Christians can really doubt in the way you have. Stop-rewind-repeat. All of a sudden you seem to be caught in the sinking sand of second guessing and nobody is throwing a rope to help out.
When these dark clouds rise in our hearts, we do ourselves no good to find refuge in ourselves. Finding your confidence in your ability to believe is like drinking sand when dying from thirst. Why drink sand when water is bubbling up from the ground? The only way to fight doubt is on the firm foundation of the faultless faith of Jesus. Your greatest, most fearsome doubt can be destroyed at the cross of Christ.
So then, what am I to do when I am doubting and straying from the Savior I love? I run to him and not away from him. The secret to fighting doubt is not trying to make yourself feel better, but rather placing your trust in Jesus’ perfect faith in your place. Jesus never doubted God’s existence – for you. He always rejoiced in the truth of God’s word – for you. On your darkest day you are smothered with Christ’s blood and the greatest Power in the universe is for you and not against you. This is not because you have strong faith. This is because Jesus’ faithfulness obliterates your faithlessness.
When the doubts come – and they surely do come – the way we fight is not through pulling up our spiritual boot straps, but by crying out to Jesus with empty hands; not by pretending to have strong faith, but by taking strength in Christ’s perfect faith that has been credited to you. We must stop trying to calm the sea and let our Savior speak to the storm.
“When Satan tempts me to despair,
and tells me of the guilt within,
Upward I look and see him there,
Who made an end to all my sin”
Don’t panic. After your last letter, I felt the icy fear freezing your feet. It almost made me want to put socks on. You are concerned about whether you should continue on the path toward marriage or bail for the single trail.
Let’s examine the series of events:
You have been studying your devotions and have spent a long time in 1 Corinthians 7.
You want to serve the Lord as best as you can and it seems Paul says singleness is the way to go.
Your friends are leaving for the missions field while you are registering for teapots and curtain rods.
Your friends are being radical and spending all day at the homeless shelter while you are spending all day licking invitation stamps.
You want to serve Jesus but now you are wondering how could you possibly be advancing the kingdom by pursuing marriage.
Pause. Grab the railing. Come let us reason together.
I think you already know the answer, but I will try to freshen the air.
The question of singleness or marriage all boils down to gifting.
Which gift do you have?
“Now as a concession, not a command, I say this. I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another.” (1 Corinthians 7:6-7 ESV)
Notice that both singleness and marriage are gifts. A gift is a good thing.
Singleness is not for the folks who didn’t make the cut. Singleness is not for those who missed the wedding bus and are sulking on the sewer curb.
No, the life of singleness is for those who are zealous for God and his gospel. God has designed singleness for those who do not settle for the mediocre. If you have the gift of singleness, seize it for the glory of God. Take life by the horns, ride the bull, live or die. Launch into the heat of the battle with no restrictions or reservations. Take no prisoners and leave no farewell letters. Visit the orphan, feed the hungry, heal the sick, and preach the gospel.
How do you know if you have the gift of singleness? You are not burning with passion for a wife. You are fine without fatherhood and satisfied without sex. You are content with Jesus and yourself.
Are these questions too basic or too secular? I don’t think so. Jesus has capital on the “secular” and he is the one who made the body to burn for his glory.
But what if you do desire a wife? What if you desire to lead a family and love a woman exclusively without reserve? This might mean marriage is for you.
Marriage is not for those less spiritual or those with less gusto for the gospel. The married life is not for those just couldn’t jump far enough on to the radical boat and are left on the unspiritual dock.
No, the life of marriage is for those who are zealous for God and his gospel. God has designed marriage to display his glory in a unique way. If you have the gift of marriage, don’t bail because you feel less spiritual. Take your wife by the hand, plunge into life, until you die. Launch into the heat of love with no restrictions or reservations. Take up a job and produce little children. Adopt the orphan, feed your neighbor, heal the sick, and preach the gospel.
He who finds a wife, finds a good thing. He who lives a single life, lives a good thing. The point of 1 Corinthians 7 is to live as you are called. Live each season with God first in your heart. Advance the kingdom of Jesus according to the desires God has given you and according to the circumstances he has placed you in, even if it is not what you expected.
Brother, if your heart longs for your fiancee, it is no sin to marry. Receive it and do not reject it.
For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.
(1 Timothy 4:4-5 ESV)
I have belabored the point, but I am confident your burning heart will warm your cold feet.
Things are getting serious when all my tolerant friends are intolerant. It bothers me when my friends start putting up fences and locking the doors to the inclusive club. Since my high school days, there have always been those around me who have been so flabbergasted by my view on marriage and family. It’s as if they are saying, “Didn’t you get the memo? Our generation is inclusive; we are tolerant. And we don’t have any tolerance…er…patience for puritanical, close minded, brain washed conservatives”
There is something very wrong with my generation when they wave the banner of peace, understanding, and tolerance, and then call me a hate monger when I share my views. So, I need to ask the question of my generation before they put the super glue on my lips and ask me to purse: does disagreement with a view automatically mean you hate them?
Before you count my chickens before they’re hatched, this is not another article about Chic Fil-a. Although, I must say that it just may be the tastiest stuff in our small corner of the Milky Way and could probably make even the strictest vegetarian compromise in a moment of weakness. However, it’s not my goal to defend their rights to speech, business, and the liberty to have their own view on the family. My problem is my generation; my beef is not just the chicken-haters, but my snarky friends who argue for tolerance with their hands around your neck.
Just so my cards are on the table: I’m a conservative, evangelical Christian, who thinks that the traditional view on marriage is the right one, and who really, really, loves homosexual people. Throughout high school I had to explain to many of my friends why I thought that homosexuality was wrong, how my beliefs influence my actions, and how my disagreement with homosexuality does not entail homophobia, hate speech, or any affiliation with Westboro Baptist Church.
Over the last few weeks I have heard people call dear friends in my faith things like “homophobes” and “hateful”. When I enquire the reasoning for this, it is not because they have said anything particularly hateful, but rather hold a viewpoint that is different from their own. Really? Has it come to this, Generation Tolerance? Has our tolerance become intolerable? Is it no longer possible for opposing views to exist in the atmosphere of conversation without kicking out the opinion that disagrees with your own?
I am sincerely sorry for the actions of many Christians who have wronged those they disagree with; however, that does not mean conversations have to end with the one interaction. When you have a bad plate of food you don’t give up on eating, you push the dish to the side (or try to “tolerate” it), and eat your next meal with hopeful expectations. You don’t call food dirty names like “garbage”, “poison”, and “taste bud hater” just because of your singular experience.
We Christians have much to learn from this recent debacle. Has your temperature sky rocketed at the thought of being maligned or not tolerated? Now, remember that feeling next time you want to shut someone down who does not agree with your viewpoint. Listening to someone does not mean you agree with them. We would do well if we would apply “treat others how you want to be treated” to public discourse and the exchange of ideas and viewpoints. Let us keep the faith with all vigilance – with tears in our eyes for our dying world and eager ears longing for understanding.
So please, let’s save the mud slinging for November and get on with the issues. There are a group of twenty-somethings who want to talk about these things. Yes, we think that marriage matters, family is important, and want to be a part of the conversation. No, we do not agree with the popular opinions of Gaga and the Muppets; however, we would like to talk about why. And maybe, just maybe, we won’t be the monsters that some people so desperately want us to be.
A political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole
(in Marxist theory) A transitional social state between the overthrow of capitalism and the realization of communism
cap·i·tal·ism
noun
An economic and political system in which a country’s trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state
There are perhaps well meaning people who want Socialism to work today. Sharing and caring; it could be fun. But the fun begins to end when a few elite people call the shots and take your toys. When the “community as a whole” turns into the few with power, things begin to go sour. Or when the “productive” neighbors become the many who mooch, smiles begin to droop.
Can I get an amen from the citizens of Jamestown?
As Christians, we cannot be ostriches with our heads in the sand, but instead must have our heads in the Bible. So the question cannot be avoided. Do the Scriptures teach socialism or another form of government?
You might hear the questions rumble: Capitalism can’t survive without selfishness. It thrives off the greedy, conniving, and fat cat American dream mentality. How can I choose a system that is profit driven over a system that is based on looking out for others? The book of Acts talked about how believers shared everything in common and their leaders regulated it. They gave away all their possessions and lived life in community with each other making sure no one lacked anything. Don’t we want to be like the early Christians?
And so the socialist spins his web full of sticky spirituality and well-placed verses.
They paint with broad strokes, but their watery colors run.
I will grant to any and everyone that selfishness is always lurking at the door, but selfishness is not the hinge on which capitalism turns. Rather, freedom is the hinge and hard work is the knob. Sure it is possible that selfish ambition may drive a person’s capitalistic car, but at least they had the freedom to put that low-grade fuel in it.
Those who blow the selfish horn usually have a lot more in their lungs. Which is more selfish? To force others to do what you want or to allow people the option to buy what you have?
Take note that neither socialism nor capitalism will solve the problem of selfishness. The only form of government that can break the power of sin is the kingdom of Christ.
As Dane Hays has said,
The bottom line is, we want capitalism because it gives the Church the liberty to take dominion over the earth and take every thought captive that is set over against the gospel. The question we ask shouldn’t be “What government system will answer the problems of the world?” The question is, “We have the answer. Now what system asks the question?” Only capitalism asks the question, because socialism thinks it already has the answer.
The early church had no part in a socialistic society. The early believers freely gave their possessions to others. They were not required by a government to share but they were compelled by God to hold all things in common. The hermeneutic that uses Scripture to support Socialism is the same hermeneutic that supported the Crusades. One coerces to convert using the sword. The other forces to share by socialism. But we all know that you can’t really make people serve God by force.
As Schmidt has pointed out, the commandments “You shall not steal” and “You shall not covet” both assume that the individual has the right and freedom to acquire, retain, and sell his property at his discretion.
So the bell has rung and Socialism 101 is being offered at the same time as Scripture 101. You can’t reserve a seat in both sections.
Therefore, let us be happy, generous capitalists who share the good news of Jesus Christ. Capitalists who have the freedom to love God by giving and allowing others to do the same.
Screwtape constantly reminds his young nephew to keep his patient away from self-forgetfulness and encourages him to, “…teach a man to surrender benefits not that others may be happy in having them but that he may be unselfish in forgoing them” (141). If my main goal in giving my money to the poor is so that I can be known as a “generous person” I have a sinful motivation. Instead, I ought to find my joy in the joy of others. My preferences, interests, and “image” should be like morning fog being burnt away by the heat of the needs of my neighbor.
2.) Worldliness is worldliness no matter how many times you call it “experience”
Screwtape informs Wormwood that, “Real worldliness is a work of time – assisted, of course, by pride, for we teach them to describe the creeping death as good sense or Maturity or Experience” (156). My American Christianity needs a good dose of this reality. For it is easy to cloak my love for the things of the world by saying certain sinful things are bearable for “mature believers” while I lose my childlike desire to please my heavenly Father. If the movie is sinful I should not watch it; if the music is sensuous I should not listen to it; if the party is a house full of temptation I should not attend it. These are not legalisms that keep me from understanding my world better; these are prescriptions that help me see my Savior clearer.
3.) Faith and repentance is better than your most spiritual promises
Screwtape scolds Wormwood for his patient’s response to a recent “fall from grace” because he is not making, “…lavish promises of perpetual virtue,” but instead, “only a hope for the daily and hourly pittance to meet the daily and hourly temptation!” (69). Faithfulness does not always look flashy, and neither does daily dying. So often a fiery sermon, a fresh new book, or a stirring conversation incites a desire to promise God feats that he is not asking of me. Rather, God calls his sons and daughters to repentance and faith, and seeking his kingdom first. This is the radical Christianity we have been wanting: grace fueled obedience.
Doors slamming, people screaming, bridges burning. All in an attempt to…guard your heart?
So many relationships have been broken in the name of self-defense. In order to protect, you shut out; it could be friends, a loved one, advice, or relationships all together. Possibly saddest of all is that many think there is a biblical basis for such reactions.
It seems that some verses in the Bible have been commandeered for specific situations, such as putting up a proverbial barrier between your heart and the world. One such verse would be Proverbs 4:23. More than taking it out of context, this verse has somehow come to represent a cause it doesn’t stand for.
“Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.”
Now, insert comment about being careful in a dating relationship. I remember reading this verse in my early teen years and envisioning building a stone wall around my heart. Complete with a moat and devoid of a drawbridge for extra security. How misguided I was!
Just a few verses before, we read, “My son, be attentive to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Let them not escape from your sight; keep them within your heart.” What follows is this admonition to “guard your heart with all vigilance”. It could have just as easily been said to “guard my sayings with all vigilance.” Solomon wants his son’s heart protected to keep wisdom in, not block something out. He knows that his son’s only chance to “put away crooked speech, and…let your eyes look directly forward” comes from the overflow of a wise heart, not the guardianship of a selfish one.
Jeremiah saw the true condition of our fallen hearts: “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” Jeremiah 17:9. In light of the wicked tendency of our hearts, how on earth does it fly that the heart is something to fawn over, “listen to”, and protect from the enemy? It very easily can be the enemy. We ought to be praying fervently every day that Jesus would pour out his grace and compassion to convict our hearts of sinfulness. While they are made new after salvation in Christ, they are still in need of guidance. That means that our hearts need to be open to correction, rebuke, exhortation, and words of wisdom; just like the ones Solomon was trying to teach to his son.
If emotional protection is what you seek from a verse like Proverbs 4:23, learn from David and commit your spirit to the Lord. There is no greater protection for your soul than to entrust it to the founder and perfecter of our faith. In so doing you will fill your heart with wisdom and Christ-found joy. Even if you have to take down walls from your heart brick by brick, I promise you that what is on the inside surface of the wall is uglier and more hurtful than what has been thrown against it.
If you have been through a painful relationship, the root of bitterness grown deep in your heart is more harmful than the temporary rejection of someone else. You can move on from rejection. But bitterness only strengthens its hold on your heart and worms its way into every relationship you lay claim to. So remove the wall and welcome the wisdom.
[Guest post by Renee Jarrett. Renee is a reader, writer, and lover of Christ. She is currently majoring in Biblical counseling at Boyce College.]
Unspoken 