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<\/a><\/p>\nDear Megan, <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n I am really struggling lately and everywhere I turn I hear “guard your heart,” but I don’t feel like I really know what that means. I want to just shut my heart down so it won’t hurt anymore, but I know that isn’t what God is calling me to do. HELP!<\/span><\/em>\u00a0Any guidance would be appreciated! <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n ~S.<\/span> <\/em><\/p>\n This is such a great question, S, and it is so important to get our heart around it to truly be living the abundant life God calls us to! Thank you for reaching out!<\/p>\n So….What does it really mean to \u201cguard your heart?\u201d<\/p>\n I keep coming back to the same verse: \u201c\u2026 and the peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus\u201d <\/em>(Philippians 4:7).\u00a0 There\u2019s so much meat in this verse; but today I want to talk about a particular piece \u2013 \u201cguard your hearts.\u201d<\/p>\n It seems to me, the best way to protect ourselves in this world, in relationships, jobs, dreams, or whatever, is to keep our expectations<\/strong> in check.<\/p>\n There are two verses people often quote with regard to guarding one\u2019s heart. The first is Proverbs 4:23. In the NIV it reads \u201cAbove all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.\u201d<\/em> The King James and the NASB, however, choose a slightly different word than \u201cguard.\u201d \u00a0NASB says \u201cwatch\u201d and KJV says \u201ckeep.\u201d And we must remember that in the Hebrew, \u201cheart\u201d actually means far more than the seat of our emotions. It\u2019s our mind, our soul, our inclinations, etc.<\/p>\n When we consider this, and look at the verse in context, it\u2019s not telling us to guard, in the sense of how we might use this word in modern English. It\u2019s not telling us to clamp down, be closed off, walled apart\u2026it\u2019s just telling us to be wise.<\/b>\u00a0 Solomon is imparting wisdom to his son and is telling him to remember his words, embed them in his heart and try to keep himself from going astray. It means that we should pursue the truth of scripture, such as that God loves us, is trustworthy, and is for our good, so that we make wise decisions. I don\u2019t believe it means we\u2019re to tense up in self-protection\u2026. But that is what we tend to do, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n If we only consider this first verse, we might be inclined to actually forget the truth of God\u2019s ways, His sovereignty, and His love, and take too much into our own hands. We\u2019ll try to desperately control our environment, and every thought and emotion, thinking we\u2019re doing the right thing. We are told to take every thought captive, but here\u2019s where that, in excess, falls apart and ceases to be of God.\u2026 <\/b><\/p>\n How much angst and stress are you putting into trying to figure out how to guard your heart? <\/b><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n How crazy are you making yourself trying to figure out what to do and not do,\u00a0<\/b><\/em><\/span>so that you won\u2019t get disappointed or disappoint someone else?<\/em><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/b>That is not God\u2019s will for you. God wants you to trust Him, be in the moment, and seek His wisdom and guidance ALONG <\/b>the way\u2026not build a fortress around you so you can\u2019t experience anything! Do you realize that if you guard your heart too much\u2026you may actually miss what God has for you?<\/strong> You may entirely sideline His will and plan because you\u2019re too busy protecting yourself. We need to learn to be okay with uncertainty and just go with it, maybe even open our hearts up a little, remembering that God is good no matter which way things go.<\/p>\n This is where we bring in the second verse. Philippians 4:6-7 reads \u201cDo not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.\u201d<\/i> This is a little different than in the first verse, and they have to be taken together.<\/p>\n Here, it is God\u2019s peace that guards your heart. It is a work of God\u2026not a work of you.<\/strong> God doesn\u2019t want us to live in anxiety and worry. And uncertainty sure causes this, doesn\u2019t it? But instead, God wants us to lay our requests at His feet, thank Him for who He is and what He has\u00a0already done\u2026and leave it at that, knowing He\u2019ll continue to do good in the future.<\/p>\n We don\u2019t pick it up again. We let the peace of laying it down guard our hearts. This submission is based on that constant insistence that God loves us and is for our good. I\u2019ll say it 1000 times because it IS the most important thing for us to EVER understand. God loves us with an immeasurable love.<\/b> God loves us so much in fact, that we may not get our way, because He knows better. He will do what is for our good. Pray this deeply into your heart. Confess and release all your fears that are keeping you from this truth in the wholeness of your life. That is where you\u2019ll find peace and how your heart will be guarded in a way that you can experience all God has for you, in wisdom, joy, and grace.<\/p>\n You see\u2026the enemy wants us to miss out on all the good things God has for us by getting us to worry and doubt. Sometimes we need to sit in uncertainty when we want to RUN!!!! But if we run, we will miss God. We will miss what He wants to show us in the situation, things He wants to teach us, ways He wants to bless us, and ways He wants to use us to bless others. God just wants us to believe Him and go with it. He wants us to have the freedom to experience what He has for us without fear. That may mean living in a lot of uncertainty, but don\u2019t wall yourself up to avoid getting hurt. Just be at peace, let God be God, and take it all one day at a time.<\/p>\n Where might you be wrestling with expectations today? Is it a struggle at work? A living situation? A family situation? A relationship that you just don\u2019t know which way it\u2019s going to go?<\/strong> <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n Release it.<\/p>\n It\u2019s going to work out exactly as God has planned and it WILL be good, any which way. Just enjoy today. Enjoy God. Enjoy the process. Enjoy the uncertainty with great expectations of what God will do through it. Submit to trusting God, ask Him for discernment in wise actions, and leave the rest to Him. Remember, His ways are not our ways, so we probably won\u2019t be able to figure it out anyway.<\/p>\n AMEN!….. and blessings to you,<\/p>\n Megan \ud83d\ude42<\/strong> <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dear Megan, I am really struggling lately and everywhere I turn I hear “guard your heart,” but I don’t feel like I really know what that means. I want to just shut my heart down so it won’t hurt anymore, but I know that isn’t what God is calling me to do. HELP!\u00a0Any guidance […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":10750,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1977],"tags":[94,1983,1993,425,2135,441,2288,2287,486,675,726,746,1673,827,879,2209,1128],"class_list":["post-11224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-glorious-living","tag-anxiety","tag-christian-life-coach","tag-discernment","tag-girlfriends-coffee-hour","tag-glorious-living-w-coach-megan","tag-gods-love","tag-gods-power","tag-guard-your-heart","tag-heart","tag-megan-smidt","tag-online-womens-bible-studies","tag-peace","tag-philippians-46-7","tag-proverbs-423","tag-relationships","tag-will-of-god","tag-wisdom","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/GL-header.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p39pHp-2V2","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/91"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11224"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11372,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11224\/revisions\/11372"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}