guarding my heart
Notes from yesterday’s bible study: (many people came! Including Lorraine whom I haven’t seen in a long long time)Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. Proverbs 4:23
Yet I hold this against you: you have forsaken your first love. Revelations 2:4
I think I really really needed that reality check, that sharp knock to say, shining where are you going, what are you doing! Anyway, as some of them pointed out, we’ve heard proverbs 4:23 before, it’s often mentioned in relationship talks, exhorting us young people to “guard our hearts” and desires because as jeremiah 17:9 says, the heart IS above all deceitful. That always kind of scared me, and well the first time I heard it I had to make the rather dramatic pull away from all common notions of following your heart over your mind, what I now consider feel-good sentimental fluff. :P Not that I think it’s ALL bad now, because when marian in woman in white sings “I believe my heart, it believes in you…” I believe her! And then feel so so sad for her plight, though I think I actually enjoyed feeling so grieved on her behalf. BUT all that’s beside the point. Because in real life, following my heart has led me down all sorts of treacherous paths, we are to “make level our paths” says the writer of proverbs 4 in verse 26 as well, so yes, I need to guard my heart.
But last night I saw it not just in that light, of guarding my heart from what deceitful wishes might enter, but also to guard what’s within. Because in verses 20-23, the writer exhorts us like this, “My son, pay attention to what I say, listen closely to my words. Do not let them out of your sight, keep them within your heart.” So it’s also about storing away His precious words in my heart, about storing away His multiple blessings showered on me, about storing away lessons that I’ve learnt, but above all, treasuring and always overcoming to retain that first love for Jesus Christ my Lord! Which is what the verse from revelations is about: the church in Ephesus were doing the right things, working hard, persevering, but they had lost focus, lost that initial passion for their Lord, love for God. They had forsaken their first love.
Our dearest small-group leader asked the right question. She told of a time when someone had asked her, have you been more filled with love and passion in your walk with God then now, if not, why? It is a tough question for me, my life spiritually has been a real rollercoaster and I can’t remember how high or how deep the peaks and troughs were previously. Though I can’t pinpoint a time when I was more 积极, in terms of serving God in church or in fellowship, I think I’m trying more, I’m more “aware” now. BUT God asked me the crucial crucial question yesterday, which is where is the love, for “the greatest of these is after all LOVE”, what are the deeds if there’s not faith, and greater than this is love, what good is doing and learning and gaining all that head knowledge if there’s no heart?
I need to learn to be Mary, “who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what He said”. I need to listen to Jesus when he told Martha that “you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed.” I want to be like Mary whose beautiful act of worship and such love for her Lord led her to do this: “Then Mary took about a pint of pure nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.”
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