Guarding the Heart
"Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life." Proverbs 4:23 (ESV)
"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Philippians 4:4-7 (ESV)
The verses from Philippians were read in church this morning, and verse 4 struck me.
Back when I was a kid and had to memorize verses in school, we used the old 1984 NIV, which renders Proverbs 4:23 with the word "Guard" instead of "Keep", so that's why it sprang to mind. But how does one do this?
I've been pondering what to do - how to proceed - with my inherent weaknesses and sins, seeing how they tend to make things crash and burn in a spectacularly-awful way. Clearly in my failing relationships, it is me that is the common denominator, so I am the problem...but what is the answer?
It is when I let people close, when I truly get attached, when I let my guard down and give people a peek at my heart, - behind the curtain, as it were - that things start spiraling downward. Somehow, I need to put a guard up and find a way to prevent this from happening.
In my bitterness and pain, the answer then seems to be to keep everyone out, hold everybody at arm's distance and just shut down my heart, padlock it, and toss away the key. Certainly that would do the trick. But I've been there, done that, and the air in there starts to get pretty foul pretty quickly, and in the dark and dank, wounds tend to fester and become gangrenous.
Back when I was a kid, my sister and I used to play a pretty awful prank on our younger brother. He was a difficult child, and my parents had resorted to switching the lock on his bedroom door, so that it could only be locked from the outside. When he'd bemoan the fact that he could no longer lock his door and keep people out, we'd tell him that he just had to push in the lock on the outside, then go in and close the door behind him. He'd do so, then sit and happily play with his Legos for hours, only to discover, when he'd try to leave, that when he thought he'd been shutting others out, he'd actually been locking himself in.
So, the easy and obvious answer involves making myself a prisoner of a dungeon of my own making. Certainly not ideal. And how does one love others, when one shuts down and shuts others out? I'm protecting them from the beast that is me, I suppose, like an inmate being shut out of society for the good of the public. But is it that, or is it rather that I can't handle the pain, and retreating is actually self-protection? If I'm honest, while it's some of the former, it's mostly the latter.
Ok, so if locking my heart away isn't the answer, then what is?
This is why Philippians caught my attention. "...the peace of God...will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus."
People misuse this verse all the time. We like to focus on the "peace that passes all understanding," removing it from its context and taking it to mean some sort of emotional state of calm, an absence of anxiety, like sitting on the calm, placid shore of the Lake of Shining Waters. But from what I understand, the peace spoken of here is not a feeling, but an objective reality. It is peace - the cessation of hostilities - between God and man.
This peace is obtained only through the merits and mediation of Christ our Savior. His death purchased that peace for us, and it is THAT which will guard our hearts and minds.
Interesting.
I don't know how this is the answer exactly, but I think it must be, and I want to ponder this some more:
Ultimately, Jesus and His work for us truly is the answer to, well...life. He died for my sins, for my black heart, for my failure to love others as I ought, for the way that I hurt people, for my incurvatus in se (my curved inward-ness). All of this - and much more - was nailed to the Cross, was and is forgiven in full - not so that I can pretend that it's ok and continue to do it, but so that the weight of it and the condemnation that comes with it has been lifted from my shoulders. Because it is no longer my burden to carry, and because my salvation does not hinge on my ability to rid myself of it, I am free to fight against it out of love for God and in service to my neighbor, even knowing I may (and probably will) continue to fail at it.
But what of the flip side? The pain of hurts inflicted by others? I'm not emotionally resilient, I guess you could say; I'm very sensitive and prone to depression, and while vulnerability can be a wonderful thing, it's a two-edged sword - and even when it doesn't result in intense pain, the bonding that happens with acceptance is not always a good thing. What of that? How does the peace that Christ has made with God on my behalf guard my heart from that?
I don't know. Maybe it's the forgiveness angle: that because of the great debt which I have been forgiven, I can then in turn forgive others for the deep wounds which they cause? I was pondering this in a post just a few days ago. Knowing that Christ's death paid for their sins too (not just my own) is important to remember, I think.
So, those are today's thoughts. I'm not sure that I've found some great secret that will magically fix everything, and for now everyone really is being kept at arm's-length, because mentally I'm absolutely breaking and it's simply necessary in order to survive at this point. I'm fighting the temptation to lash out and say things I may regret, and burn bridges and sever ties with finality. I'm taking it one day at a time.
But even having made it this far is a victory. And while I'm holding people at bay, and the door is closed, it's not latched and is still sitting ever-so-slightly ajar. I still have the key in my pocket.
May God grant me the wisdom to know what to do, and may He correct me where I am going wrong, and give me the grace to accept that correction and amend my ways. May He be gracious and not leave me to my own self-absorbed devices, but rather pry my chin off of my chest and my eyes off of my own navel to look away from my own pain and my own sin, and look to Christ on the Cross - the Bronze Serpent who was lifted up.
Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes;
Shine through the gloom, and point me to the skies.
Heav'n's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee;
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.
(Abide with Me; LSB #878)
-M