Guard Your Hearts

Normally speaking I do not reveal personal information on this blog. The first reason is that this blog is meant to be a place for the glorification of the Lord, not a personal diary. The second reason is that as I have so foolishly learned by disobedience, I have incurred superfluous amounts of heartbreak because I did not follow the warnings in scripture. It warns us in Proverbs 4:23, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it”. In the Hebrew translation, guard means keep above all keeping. Thus, we must keep up and above out-of-sight things that need protection from the world. The things of our heart include our feelings, our bodies, our personal information, our relationships, and so forth. Furthermore, when we do not guard our hearts the pain that we feel from those who mishandle us flows from within. Out of our mouths and in our actions, we see the manifestation of painful things that attach to the hurt such as insecurity in identity, brokenness, anger, jealousy, control of others and situations, and grief.

In conjunction with Proverb's warning, we are warned in Matthew 7:6, “Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.” I too have fallen into this trap and have found myself time and time again, verbally, and mentally abused, physically unprotected, misunderstood, and ultimately left to pick up the broken pieces that were trampled underneath the feet of those I thought would love and care for me most. I have learned the hard way that people do not deserve the fullness of us until they have truly been tried and tested.

The third reason I am private and do not share too much information in my blog is that this blog intends to encourage, edify, and rebuild the body of Christ. My personal information is for those who have truly been tried and tested. My prayer and desires are to see a stronger church, a more loving church, and a merciful church. A church filled with believers who are willing to surrender their fleshly needs and desires to belong, and instead pick up their cross daily and become true burden bearers for the sake of the gospel. I pray for a church that is willing to be courageous enough to stand up for those who are being abused, ignored, cast aside, and in need of a compassionate loving person to walk away with them through trials and tribulations.

Thus, today’s post may be a bit more personal than normal because it is from my life lessons that I can share the truth of the gospel. The truth of the gospel is you cannot share the gospel of peace with the world until you have been pressed and destroyed. The oil that we pour out on the feet of the Father is costly. It is offensive to others, yet it is costly to him because it is the oil that is pressed out of us that fills the lamp. You cannot truly walk out the Christian life until you have become the most desperate version of yourself. You cannot truly walk out the gospel until you learn the truth that in suffering one reaps the greatest rewards. It is not until you learn the art of letting go and going lower that you’ll truly embody a life of servanthood. This life is not about you but rather about how you love freely and sacrificially.

It is in the gap, alone with Christ, yielding to his voice that I find myself desperate for his embrace. My life has been filled with more burdens than I could ever describe. The burdens have been more than I thought I could ever bear. Faced with being stripped of many natural human needs and wants, it is in the darkness and desperation I have found my most humble and authentic self, ready to serve the Lord and to serve others in humility. Today, I feel that truth grip me. It grips the very places no man has ever touched. This is why it is so important that we align ourselves with God's word and his instructions on how to best live our lives. It is not that in doing so you will not experience pain, but rather have guiding principles to help you process the pain and how best to handle your most hurtful of times. One of the areas that I have struggled with in my life is building and maintaining healthy relationships in the Church. I tend to attract and allow people who do not respect me or treat me kindly. I have let them stay in my life longer than I ever should. I have often fallen for words without true definitive action, which further caused strife and confusion in my heart, mind, body, and soul. I have been excluded, ignored, and cast out of the Christian community with no room for reconciliation and rebuilding (which we are called to do). I have been called names, ignored, had my requests for resolution blown off, and told that I am bitter and broken. I have gotten my hopes up for things that never came to pass and watched people so willingly and easily walk away. The most damaging part of the process has been that the very people I opened my heart to have been the ones to damage it the most. My pain has been met with deaf ears. I can only imagine the countless others who have been hurt by Christians. Since going through what I have, I realize I have a true passion for teaching and leading the Church in true repentance, reconciliation, and processing pain bravely and compassionately so that we continue to build and grow rather than divide and disperse as the enemy wants to see happen.

Those who truly know the Lord and are fully consumed by the Lord know how to protect the flock. I once read a quote that said, the sheep will spend its entire life fearing the wolf, only to be eaten by the shepherd. If I had to summarize my Christian walk it would be that saying. I constantly had this deeply rooted fear that there were people in this world who were going to harm me, so I needed to fall under the wings of a pastor or a man who claims to be Christian for my protection.

What I have found is priests, pastors, leaders, and Christians have been some of the most damaging people to come into my life. It was in my desperation that I cried out to the Lord for help and clarity in scary and lonely places. What I have found in my brokenness is that it was Jesus who came for me. There was no man nor woman around to take me away or out of harm's way. There was no one standing up for me. Ultimately to walk away from things that were not pure, holy, and loving places that represented the true heart of the Father was something only I could do. It was not something that I could convince others to do. I had to face these things on my own with Jesus. There was no way around it. Conclusively, I realize that followers of Christ must bear their burdens, especially the ones that we do not deserve with supernatural God-given humility, dignity, and grace along with Him. When I feel pain, I need to get lower and get on my hands and knees and pray. When I feel weak, I need to go serve those in need. When I feel lost, I need to get lost in Christ’s presence. When I feel desperate, I need to cry out to the Lord in desperation for comfort. When I feel overwhelmed by life, I must go knocking on God’s door and ask for the overwhelm of heaven to overtake me. It is here, it is in this lowly place where I find the truthfulness of humility. It is in Christ that I can fully submit myself knowing that the result will only bring more glorification to him and to that there is no greater reward.

Many of the things that I have gone through came out of the desperation to belong and to be accepted by others. Other times it was trying to force the men I dated to be the husband I deep down craved, desired, and deserved. I released my heart's secrets and shared parts of myself I never should have all because I was directing my desperation towards people to love me instead of directing my desperation for love towards the Father. I know now that if I want to fully feel loved, accepted, known, heard, and seen, I need to guard my heart until people are heavily tried and tested. In the process of the testing and trying of others it is better to fully reveal my heart to God so that he can try and test me. It is in allowing God to try and test us he can reveal the depths of who we are to him and allow him to strip us of our flesh so that he can fill us and embellish us in his beauty, kindness, compassion, grace, and mercy. The love I so desperately desired from man could only be found in Christ.

So, to those of you are who suffering, in pain, and feeling desperately alone I implore you to learn the truth in the warning to guard your heart and to be careful with whom you share your most intimate self. Be careful whom you surround yourself with and be willing to walk alone for some time if the people that are near you do not draw you into communion with Christ. If God allows everyone and everything to fall away, then learn to say “Thy will be done” for it is in this desperate and brave surrender that God can work in you and through you to make you a more beautiful representation of Christ in the world. And to those who deny you, count it a blessing, for this only redirects you to those who can love you, honor you, and respect you with the same love, mercy, and compassion that Christ gives to each of us.

One day we will all have to present ourselves to the Lord and he will ask each of us if we loved well. If but one of his sheep is revealed that you ignored, refused reconciliation, forgiveness, or to extend compassion and protection I fear your fate is not good. Many will not be pleased when the father turns his back on them and says that he knows not of them. So, in this hour if you have left people lost, broken, or hurting make things right. Live up to the call to bear one another's burdens, and do not align with anyone or any Church that does not truly follow Christ's direction. His direction is very bluntly stated in Matthew 16:24, “Then Jesus said to His disciples, If anyone desires to be My disciple, let him deny himself [disregard, lose sight of, and forget himself and his interests] and take up his cross and follow Me [cleave steadfastly to Me, conform wholly to My example in living and, if need be, in dying, also].

In this hour we must guard our hearts, yield to his voice, and lay our lives down for the sake of Christ, and for the least of his people. For as desperate and as in pain as many of us our there is a call for us to go lower. There is a call to walk away from people, places, and things that do not live like Christ, and go out into the world to love people crying out for the mercy, kindness, and compassion of Christ. Until we learn to forgive, reconcile, let go, and rebuild, we will never become who God desires us to be. Until we learn to guard our hearts and protect what is sacred the devil will continue to have a field day in our lives. My prayer for each one of you is that you will be given a supernatural revelation of the Truth. My prayer is that you will always pursue healing and restoration, that God will sharpen your discernment for who the wolves in sheep's clothing truly are in your life, and that you will walk boldly and bravely in communion with Christ to love and serve the Lord on earth as it is in heaven! Amen.