Above all else, guard your heart,
for it is the wellspring of life. – Proverbs 4:23
People intrigue me. Not famous people like actors, politicians and leaders, just normal 9-5, work to just squeeze by, people. Sometimes I just like to watch people as a casual observer. I’ll just sit on a bench and watch and listen to what they say, how they say it, and how they act. It would appear that most people genuinely believe they are doing what is best for themselves and those in their immediate surroundings. Well, maybe not best, but at least, their actions don’t (or shouldn’t) interfere with the plans and actions of others. Unless, of course, someone else is interfering with them, then actions take on a whole new purpose. But for now, let’s just assume that we’re talking about someone who is just acting in life, not reacting to life.
I’ve spent most of my life feeling just this way. I was convinced I was a good guy with good motives, well liked, intellegent and basically doing the best I could and doing it well. Most people that I interacted with on a semi-regular basis would probably agree as well. The darker forces in the world know this about me, and they know it about you too. By the time we become aware that we are being used and manipulated usually we’ve hurt someone or ruined someone’s life. Even then, however, some people never truly own up to who they are or seek to see themselves as they are.
People are selfish monsters.
That statement is a realization few will reach and even fewer will accept. The natural reaction is to reel against the accusation, citing numerous real-life examples of when we have been saints. By this stage in my life, it would seem that the realization is something that is entirely impossible to force someone else to realize. I could recount the times that my wife (she was my fiance at the time) inadvertently tried to make/help me realize it, but it wasn’t something I was willing or ready for at the time.
If the heart can be the wellspring of life, then we have to assume that its waters are capable of being poisioned. We ourselves don’t knowingly poison ourselves, but our lack of keeping guard and protecting our hearts might as well be an open invitation for its destruction. When you yell at your spouse/fiance/kids/family, your spewing forth poison. When you lie, no matter how small, it’s laced with poison. Pre-marital sex, lewdness, and pornography are all poisons that seek to destroy marriage and a unique bond with another human being. Our society is a pot of water being heated slowly, and we are the toads that are sitting in that pot while we slowly cook.
If I would have realized all these things at a younger age I could be twice the man and twice the Christian that I am today. However, I never took the time to become intimately familiar with my heart. I never sought out the evil and disgusting origins of the actions that I assumed had no consequence beyond the temporary guilt they produced.
Society is founded on ideals and acceptances that are intended to hide your heart from you!
Popular preachers of Mega Churches and self-help gurus all want to you to feel good and be satisfied with your life and be content in your level of effort. No one wants to tell you that if you really want to be content and happy with life and yourself you first have to be MISERABLE with yourself and your life. You have to realize that the misery originates in your heart and your mind and is given birth by your thoughts turned into actions.
I realize what I am saying sounds like psychological babble. I might as well just say “if you want to gain control you must lose control” or some other Yoda-esque catch phrase. But what I am saying is true. I know it to be true by the profound impact this realization has had on my life and the lives of those I know on an intimate level. Yet I remain unable to prove it. I am stuck feeling helpless by my only option of saying “you’ll have to see it for yourself”.
Everything I am saying hinges upon one statement:
If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men. – 1 Cor. 15:19
I can accept that if indeed my faith in Christ is false, as many claim it to be, then yes, I am a fool and everything I will work for in life is a farce and a waste of my accidental placement on this Earth. I can’t prove you wrong, you’re right.
If not for the experiencing of this transformation in my own life, my own heart, and my own soul, then I too would be among those that say “there is no God”. If I too believed that my actions and hopes in this life had no lasting or profound consequences then there would be no use for a belief God. But I watch people suffer, I watch them struggling to find reasons for their sufferings. Reasons that they try to anchor to this world and the chaos all around us. If you spend enough time around someone, watching them, listening to them, you can almost see their hearts yearning for something. And based on their actions, their minds have yet to make the realization that their hearts are suffering and longing. A longing heart, however, is a very difficult thing to hide from others.
Above all else, guard your heart,
for it is the wellspring of life. – Proverbs 4:23
I see older Christians all the time that having reached a certain level of guarding and disciplining their hearts, just stop. It’s evident in the anger and disgust they still exhibit for other Christians and God’s creation. It’s apparent in gossip, passing judgement, and an overall missed interpretation of who Jesus was and wanted them to be. I can’t (and won’t) cast eternal judgement on these people, but I can say that God wishes more for them. God wishes more for you and for me. He didn’t just send His Son to this Earth to die for us, He sent His Son to live for us. For a better understanding of what I mean read: “Who is this Man?“.
My first step in realizing that my problems and my misery came from my heart was when I stopped blaming others for how I felt and what I experienced. Our discontentment with life is not the result of God, Satan, or any person. To claim that it is, is to believe that you have no control over who you are or what you say and do. In a culture that prides itself on being individuals that have the right and potential to shape their destiny, we are all to ready to blame everyone else when we have lost our control and individuality. It’s an inconsistency of thought that still baffles me, even having been imprisoned by it in the past.
If you are ready to experience a change in where you are at in life, then start with your heart. Search for and uncover the ugliness that is hiding there.
The Wellspring
People intrigue me. Not famous people like actors, politicians and leaders, just normal 9-5, work to just squeeze by, people. Sometimes I just like to watch people as a casual observer. I’ll just sit on a bench and watch and listen to what they say, how they say it, and how they act. It would appear that most people genuinely believe they are doing what is best for themselves and those in their immediate surroundings. Well, maybe not best, but at least, their actions don’t (or shouldn’t) interfere with the plans and actions of others. Unless, of course, someone else is interfering with them, then actions take on a whole new purpose. But for now, let’s just assume that we’re talking about someone who is just acting in life, not reacting to life.
I’ve spent most of my life feeling just this way. I was convinced I was a good guy with good motives, well liked, intellegent and basically doing the best I could and doing it well. Most people that I interacted with on a semi-regular basis would probably agree as well. The darker forces in the world know this about me, and they know it about you too. By the time we become aware that we are being used and manipulated usually we’ve hurt someone or ruined someone’s life. Even then, however, some people never truly own up to who they are or seek to see themselves as they are.
People are selfish monsters.
That statement is a realization few will reach and even fewer will accept. The natural reaction is to reel against the accusation, citing numerous real-life examples of when we have been saints. By this stage in my life, it would seem that the realization is something that is entirely impossible to force someone else to realize. I could recount the times that my wife (she was my fiance at the time) inadvertently tried to make/help me realize it, but it wasn’t something I was willing or ready for at the time.
If the heart can be the wellspring of life, then we have to assume that its waters are capable of being poisioned. We ourselves don’t knowingly poison ourselves, but our lack of keeping guard and protecting our hearts might as well be an open invitation for its destruction. When you yell at your spouse/fiance/kids/family, your spewing forth poison. When you lie, no matter how small, it’s laced with poison. Pre-marital sex, lewdness, and pornography are all poisons that seek to destroy marriage and a unique bond with another human being. Our society is a pot of water being heated slowly, and we are the toads that are sitting in that pot while we slowly cook.
If I would have realized all these things at a younger age I could be twice the man and twice the Christian that I am today. However, I never took the time to become intimately familiar with my heart. I never sought out the evil and disgusting origins of the actions that I assumed had no consequence beyond the temporary guilt they produced.
Society is founded on ideals and acceptances that are intended to hide your heart from you!
Popular preachers of Mega Churches and self-help gurus all want to you to feel good and be satisfied with your life and be content in your level of effort. No one wants to tell you that if you really want to be content and happy with life and yourself you first have to be MISERABLE with yourself and your life. You have to realize that the misery originates in your heart and your mind and is given birth by your thoughts turned into actions.
I realize what I am saying sounds like psychological babble. I might as well just say “if you want to gain control you must lose control” or some other Yoda-esque catch phrase. But what I am saying is true. I know it to be true by the profound impact this realization has had on my life and the lives of those I know on an intimate level. Yet I remain unable to prove it. I am stuck feeling helpless by my only option of saying “you’ll have to see it for yourself”.
Everything I am saying hinges upon one statement:
I can accept that if indeed my faith in Christ is false, as many claim it to be, then yes, I am a fool and everything I will work for in life is a farce and a waste of my accidental placement on this Earth. I can’t prove you wrong, you’re right.
If not for the experiencing of this transformation in my own life, my own heart, and my own soul, then I too would be among those that say “there is no God”. If I too believed that my actions and hopes in this life had no lasting or profound consequences then there would be no use for a belief God. But I watch people suffer, I watch them struggling to find reasons for their sufferings. Reasons that they try to anchor to this world and the chaos all around us. If you spend enough time around someone, watching them, listening to them, you can almost see their hearts yearning for something. And based on their actions, their minds have yet to make the realization that their hearts are suffering and longing. A longing heart, however, is a very difficult thing to hide from others.
I see older Christians all the time that having reached a certain level of guarding and disciplining their hearts, just stop. It’s evident in the anger and disgust they still exhibit for other Christians and God’s creation. It’s apparent in gossip, passing judgement, and an overall missed interpretation of who Jesus was and wanted them to be. I can’t (and won’t) cast eternal judgement on these people, but I can say that God wishes more for them. God wishes more for you and for me. He didn’t just send His Son to this Earth to die for us, He sent His Son to live for us. For a better understanding of what I mean read: “Who is this Man?“.
My first step in realizing that my problems and my misery came from my heart was when I stopped blaming others for how I felt and what I experienced. Our discontentment with life is not the result of God, Satan, or any person. To claim that it is, is to believe that you have no control over who you are or what you say and do. In a culture that prides itself on being individuals that have the right and potential to shape their destiny, we are all to ready to blame everyone else when we have lost our control and individuality. It’s an inconsistency of thought that still baffles me, even having been imprisoned by it in the past.
If you are ready to experience a change in where you are at in life, then start with your heart. Search for and uncover the ugliness that is hiding there.