Henry Cloud & John Townsend - Life JourneySample

Guarding Our Hearts

“Above all else, guard your heart,” says the wise teacher (Proverbs 4:23). We are to be responsible stewards of our hearts, as it is our heart that determines everything we do (see Matthew 12:34–35; 15:18–19). The way Proverbs 4:23 ends shows us that our hearts are the spring from which our very life flows.

To guard our hearts, we need to be careful as to what we allow to be in them. We are to be diligent in making sure that healthy things, such as love and truth, are entering our hearts, and that unhealthy things, such as deception, manipulation or abuse, are not. We have to work on the issues within our hearts as well. This means that we have to be getting rid of the toxic aspects of our own character through confession and repentance, as well as keeping other people’s toxicity from being “dumped on our property.”

Healthy boundaries will help us to guard our hearts, much like a fence guards the physical property of someone’s home. Boundaries result from speaking our limits directly to others, saying what we will allow and what we will not allow to affect our hearts. It is our responsibility in guarding our hearts to speak up and make our boundaries clear. We need to take stewardship over what is in our hearts, making it a place where good things reside, and not allowing sickness or poison to be there, either from our own issues or the acts of others.