Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. (Proverbs 4:23)
In ancient times, the well was the source of water – and from water flows life. Guarding a well was essential to survival. No room for dozing on the job. If bandits seized it, they controlled the sustenance for land, animals, and people. Truly, water from the well, spilling and dripping from the bucket, was essential to life.
How powerful then the reminder that our heart is like a well. How important to heed the instruction to guard the heart as the source of all we are and do. The heart is the wellspring of life toward both God and man. It is a precious call to watch over the heart well.
Guarding and tending
What does it mean to guard? It is to watch over, with the alertness and care worthy of a source of such value. It implies that we are reflecting on the state and security of our life toward God and men, slowing down enough to ask questions, pondering over the thoughts and feelings, the actions and responses that are the outflow of the well. Would we know if it had been captured? Would we taste contaminated water? Do we observe, assess, and evaluate the beliefs and desires – do we check the loves and the fears of our hearts?
What does this guarding look like? Proverbs 4 elaborates. For example, we keep the King’s words in our hearts (v21). ‘Keeping’ here is the same word used of Adam’s watching over and careful tending of Eden (Genesis 2:15). God’s wise words are to be received, planted, nurtured and watered in our hearts so that they spring into flourishing beauty in daily life. And then we also watch over those springs: our ‘ways’ or paths of life are to be ‘pondered’ (v26). We take a step back to examine the behaviours, words, thoughts, decisions, emotions that are springing out of the well. Be self-aware, and evaluate the road you are taking with your steps of activity and relationship along the way.
Pitfalls and threats
All this talk of reflection and awareness, isn’t it just a lot of old navel-gazing? Mere introspection is a pitfall too. We could become so focused on the inward life that we neglect to turn to the Lord and to the good works we were created to walk in. But the other pitfall (perhaps a greater danger) is neglect – to over-focus on the outward life, or more specifically its demands and troubles, that we fail to give the heart any attention.
What can get in the way of us tending the heart? One is an activism that responds to life mainly by doing, fixing and sorting. Life around the well becomes more important – the family, working the land – so that the well itself is forgotten. Life beyond the well gets so busy, busy, busy that time to protect and preserve it slips away. What fills the diary, absorbing your time, channelling your energies and taking the place of reflection?
A further threat is distraction: another need, another person, another call on our time. Something else catches our attention as we move toward the well. A phone pings, a thought intrudes and our focus darts onto the next thing. What draws your focus away from reflecting on your heart?
Slow down – with the Lord and others
We need slow time before the Lord. The well of the heart has deep waters (Proverbs 20:5). It takes time to submerge, to assess both water and well, to reflect on how things are. A quick dip won’t do it. It’s an activity of wisdom that flows from the fear of the Lord. So, it is done in his presence, before his gaze, with prayer to him, seeking his assessment. We guard, we watch, we weed, we tend, we ponder, all in his wisdom. This can look like many things: praying, reading, thinking, meditating, writing, journaling. It needs slowing down with God and time set apart.
We slow down with others. This wisdom is a community project. Guarding the heart is not a solo task. It’s tempting to think that watching the heart only works itself out in a quiet time. But remember the context of Proverbs 4. A king is speaking to his royal offspring. We are eavesdropping on a conversation between father and son. One is speaking wisdom. The other listens, reflects and undergoes heart exposure. Both are engaging in a process of maturing and growth. This can look like many things. A walk and chat between friends, conversation over dinner, a pastorally intentional meeting after church, counselling, a regular supervision meeting in your ministry role. It needs slowing down with others and time set apart.
There is a beautiful vision behind this wisdom: of a life that is like fresh, flowing, life-giving water, that blesses, refreshes and shares life with others, bringing encouragement through how we love them. It’s a life whose wisdom displays the King. So, above all things, let’s watch over our hearts.
