“Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it spring the issues of life.” – Proverbs 4: 23

I was reminded of this great wisdom today, the principle is as practical as life itself. Some people would think that guarding your heart only matters when it comes to partnerships and relationships, we are so superficial to understand that the heart encompasses everything - all the issues of life.

Our heart, emotion, thoughts, and will is our responsibility, and in Proverbs 4: 23 God instructed us to guard and control with diligence and wisdom for out of it are ALL issues of life, He did not even say only the matters of our spiritual relationship with Him but ALL, that includes family affairs, love life, career, studies, ambitions, our hobbies and desires and etc.

This morning, someone shared to me the story of the Good Samaritan (read Luke 30-35). We have known the Samaritan helping a man on the road, after helping the man, the next day he left money to the innkeeper, requested the latter to help the injured man and whatever he spent, the Samaritan will repay him next. This story teaches us these two principles:

Give some responsibility to the people you help.

Helping does not mean giving all your time and everything to the person. You should also give him the space to move and help himself. Learn to guard your heart from frustration when the person fails to accomplish your expectations. The Samaritan can stay, until the injured man gets well, but he did not. Often times it is better to give the people we are helping some responsibility to learn and grow. It is enough that we helped them once or twice, the most important things that he/ she needed to learn.

“If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day—if you teach him to fish, you feed him for many days.”

This Chinese proverb is so fitting, I believe. Teaching someone how to live and make a living is much noble than giving them every single day of what they need, eventually exploiting all your time and resources.

Spend some. Save some. Give some.

God did not tell us that helping is giving other people an opportunity to use us. When we are guided by the Holy Spirit, he will tell us how to help, when to help, until when to help and until how much we can give.

I have seen a lot of martyrs nowadays, and they're not even heroes. I pity when a kind person was abused just because he/ she is willing to help every time. Indeed, it's not bad to help, but we have to guard our hearts before we lost the respect we have for ourselves.

Last Thoughts

I just love this principle about life. I have imagined myself so many times bursting with frustration and disappointment just because I have given so much and yet I was taken for granted.

Today, I’m learning to take this concept personally AGAIN, as a social being sensitive and affectionate to the people we care and love; we sometimes fail to guard our heart. It took more damage to our physical and emotional well-being before we realize that our heart is our responsibility.

Thank for reading and I hope we have learned something from here.

I'm sorry that I have published a draft early on. I accidentally clicked publish instead of SAVE, lol!

I hope you all had a blessed Sunday! God bless!

Lead Image from Pixabay

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06/26/2022

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