Nope, to guard your heart isn’t a word from your cardiologist about heart attacks. It’s when your heart is attacked – or, more accurately, when your heart is hardened.
In these days I’ve offered unsolicited counsel to folks, whether they asked for it or not.
“Guard your heart.”
This should be self-evident. I have not lived in a more contentious time ever. We are hammered daily by apocalyptic news. That pandemic thing? It’s ain’t going away anytime soon. I mean, there’s this absurd debate over masks. Masks. Think about that.
We are a world on edge.
Because of that, there’s evidence that we need to guard our hearts because our hearts are being devalued. When we have had all that we think we can take, then our hearts become hard.
What got me all stirred up about this was a passage that turned up in my devotional reading a few days ago.
It’s from Exodus 11 and other nearby verses. You know the story of the Egyptian plagues. God visited plagues on Pharaoh and the Egyptians because they wouldn’t heed Moses’ plea to “let my people go.”
It didn’t go well for Egypt. And the big theological question is, “Does God harden some people’s hearts?”
Here’s this:
10 Moses and Aaron performed all these wonders before Pharaoh, but the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he would not let the Israelites go out of his country.
I don’t know how deep I want to get into this, because I’m not the theologian I’d like to be. If the issue is for me to harden my heart, is that something I do or that God does? And why?
Sometimes it seems that God treats people differently.
You can see this in all of Chapter 11 (and for context, it’s worth reading in surrounding passages about the whole Jewish deliverance and exodus from Egypt.) It seems that the Egyptian people thought pretty highly of Moses and the Israelites (verse 3.) At the same time, God hardens Pharaoh’s heart.
At first glance, that seems really contradictory.
Could God harden your heart?
In the interest of “keeping it real,” we have to acknowledge that, yep, there are two different issues in play.
(Note: We ain’t gonna get into a debate about God’s sovereignty and human freedom. I’ll meet you in your dorm room after classes if you want to toss that around. Chances are, though, since this has been a debate for centuries among some very wise people, we probably won’t solve it.)
At any rate, just looking at the narrative, the question is still out there: Why is there a difference?
Guess what. Only God knows. I mean, ancient script says that God has mercy on whom He wants to have mercy, and He hardens whom He wants to harden. Think about that too long, pilgrim, and you’ll be up all night. For the time being, just roll with it.
If we can bring this down to a human (read – comprehensible) level, there are a couple of factors to note. One, Pharaoh saw the Jews as free labor. Pharaoh was so egocentric and ambitious, he had the Israelites as a bunch of tools. He needed them for his big plans to come about.
But the Egyptians themselves seemed more sympathetic.
What does all this have to do if you harden your heart?
In these dark, convoluted days, it may be that your heart has grown hard. You’ve simply had it with people, opinions, debate, ignorance, all that. You haven’t done a great job of guarding your heart. It’s gotten callous and hard.
Where do your feelings come from, anyway?
There may be genetics in play here. Environmental issues. Something chemical in the brain. The list could go on. Are at we at the mercy of our feelings and emotions? Do we choose how we should feel? Yikes.
This: in spite of differences in upbringing, biology, sociology, and other factors, there is one universal. It’s sin.
Sin, to some degree, impacts every part of our lives, and every part of everyone else’s lives. Harden your heart? Maybe sin factors into that, too.
Back to God’s sovereignty – here’s something not up for debate – God controls the universe. If there were one renegade molecule out there that He didn’t control, He’d self-destruct. He wouldn’t be God anymore. Staggering.
Which means: God controls pandemics. He controls all of nature. He is always active in the affairs of mankind.
So, how does God’s control impact you and me personally? Is how we respond to this current crisis dictated by Him? Do you think you’ll harden your heart or is that something God will do “to” you? How do you guard your heart anyway?
Here’s the age-old tension. If we’re free to choose our attitudes, mindset, values, and all the rest, that seems to diminish God’s authority. If, on the other hand (and there is another hand to consider), God causes us to harden our hearts, it makes God seem unfair. It could even seem that God is bringing about events and attitudes that are contrary to who He is.
Again, this is some deep stuff right here, and you’ll just have to hammer it out in a way that God leads you to understand.
All this is pretty ethereal. Let’s go practical here.
This blog today is about guarding your heart to the extent that it doesn’t get hard. God is completely good in His actions. Always and forever.
- Latch onto that.
- Trust Him. He will never, ever lead you astray.
- Work and live in a way that pleases Him.
- Could how you conduct yourself in a crisis be an act of worship? I think so.
- God understands things you simply can’t. Make a list of questions you’d like Him to answer for you when you get to heaven, and set it aside. He’s not obligated to inform you right now (book of Job, baby!)
- In light of that last statement, God is not going to call on you to deal with the issues that only He understands.
- Guard your heart. Don’t purposefully harden your heart.
- It’s going to be okay. It always is.
Be blessed.
Tony’s Question: What is one concrete, measurable step you can take to guard your heart? Share your thoughts with us in the space below. You may just encourage someone!
PS: I’ve been added as a member of Bible Gateway’s Blogger Grid. Bible Gateway is my go-to source for scripture quotations and Bible translations Bible Gateway, the searchable and shareable Bible with more than 200 versions and more than 70 languages. It features news about the Bible, interviews with authors about their Bible-focused books, and the latest announcements from Bible Gateway. It’s the best place to stay current with Bible-related developments. They’ve done some tweaking and updates to their site, and it’s just stellar. I recommend them highly. Check it out. You’re welcome.
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Here’s a link to take you there. There’s also a link on my home page.