Day 311: Guard Your Heart, Don't Block It

Proverbs 4:23

Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.

Ezekiel 36:26

And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

Block- to obstruct

Guard- To keep safe from harm or danger , protect

I’m sure many of us have lived by Proverbs 4:23, as we should. We have set our sights on protecting our hearts. So we will not get hurt, or so that it will not be abused. Sometimes we’re trying to protect ourselves from the wrong things. What I mean is that we sometimes have our hearts so guarded that we forget how to let those guards down. Guarding our hearts becomes building walls around it so that nothing and no one can come in. Our generation is so afraid of being hurt that we would rather be numb. We would rather not feel anything. I understand that heartbreak happens, at this age many of us have had our hearts broken at least once, but we’re still here. God put our hearts back together and shows us everyday how we should be loved.

We have so many walls built, from hurt, disappointment, betrayal, abandonment, the list can go on and on. It like every time something happens to us we build a new wall and eventually our hearts become unreachable. We forget how to feel, we don’t know how to love or be loved because we are so guarded. We are so blocked off from everything that we don’t even let God in.

Why are we so afraid to let love in? In the sense that God is love, no one can love us the way God will, but sometimes we can be so guarded that we can’t even knock down the walls to let Him in. The amazing thing about God is, He will knock those walls down and pursue our hearts. God wants our hearts, He loves us so much, but we sometimes turn away from that love. We turn away because we view God’s love through natural eyes, not seeing  that His love is supernatural. We don’t realize that God will love us more than the people who broke our hearts, He will not break our hearts, He will not stop loving us. Sometimes we allow our experiences to influence of perception of who God is. When the truth is, our experience with God should change how we perceive the world, ourselves, and other people. We cannot learn to love properly if our heart is caged by walks we’ve built to try to protect it. When we do that we distance ourselves from God and His people.

With that being said we must not assume that everyone is out to get us.

I remember a point in my life where I was so guarded that I wouldn’t allow anyone to love me, or get close to me because everyone that said they loved me turned on me and walked out of my life in an instant. After that I assumed that everyone was the same way, I thought everyone was just going to break my heart. I made it very hard for people to love me, as well as for me to love people because I could not bare the pain of having my heart shattered again. It was like anyone new I met would have to go through a trial run before I would let them completely in, just to make sure they weren’t going to hurt me. I closed myself off because up unto that point in my life had found that love hurts. Then God showed me, love should not hurt in this way. He showed me how I should be loved, by sent people, good, genuine people into my life that would not be there to use me, or hurt me, but people who would wholeheartedly love me. It threw me, because I was expecting them to walk out of my life, and treat me the same the others did. But they didn’t, God sent them to show me what true love looks like.

-Dyamond

A lot of what we go through when it comes to this is, we cannot trust people, we refuse to trust people or we find it very hard to trust people. Also the inability to completely trust and give our hearts to Christ. The first thing we must do is trust God with our hearts. He made the human heart, He tends to every need. If anyone knows how to love us, it’s God. We have to trust that God will not allow us to hurt beyond what we can handle. And yes sometimes we will go through heartbreak, it’s a part of life, trusting God with our heart doesn’t mean we’ll never hurt again, it means that in those moments we trust God to put us back together, and so much better than before. We trust Him to love us through the pain and aches.

All this to say, we cannot allow what has happened to us in the past influence how we love people in the present and the future. Guard your heart, and protect but don’t block it and lock it away. God wants our hearts but we have to be willing to trust Him with it.

Reflection

1. Have you ever had your heartbroken?
2. Did it cause you to close yourself off?
3. Have you ever found yourself guarding your heart from God?
4. Why do think it is so hard for us to trust God and people with our hearts?
5. Discuss this.

Prayer Time

Allow your answers to the above questions guide your prayer, have a conversation with God about what we discussed today. Search yourself and see if you are blocking your heart and let God in.

I love you and I hope you have an amazing day or evening! Be sure to share this with someone and come back tomorrow for Day 312!

Day 95: Let's Talk About It- "Broken People"

Psalms 147:3

He heals the brokenhearted And binds up their wounds.

Psalms 34:28

The LORD is near to the brokenhearted And saves those who are crushed in spirit.

This generation gets a lot of slack for acting out, we are constantly told to get our lives together. I think many times when we see people who are acting out, or having a hard time giving themselves to Christ, we must consider that these are broken people. We live in an age where people are walking around completely broken with a smile on their face. People are walking around ready to take their own lives but will smile and say, “I’m okay”. Why do we wait until tragedy strikes to notice that someone needed our ear, or they needed our prayer. They didn’t need us to beat them over the head with a bible, they needed us to be there. We have people walking around feeling unloved, and never knew that someone could love them. We are often told what we did to be in the position that we are in. Something we have to realize is that sin isn’t the only thing that causes brokenness within humanity, There is heartbreak, relationships gone wrong, death, mental illness, tragic accidents, natural disasters. There are so many things that can break a heart, but only one can truly heal a heart. Yet we have people walking around because they are unaware of this magnificent healing. We know of this healing, we know that Christ is our healer, but can we relay that message to the young girl who suffers from an eating disorder and cuts herself. Can we tell that to the young boy struggling with body image issues. Can we acknowledge that there is a deeper issue to the brokenness of people.  We are good at acknowledging pain and hurt, but what are we doing to make sure these people receive healing from God? Why are brushing off people’s pain? We have been told to let it go, let God, surrender, but what about when the wound is fresh and we can’t let it go that night or day. What if just lifting our hands in church won’t take the pain away, I have to be honest. Why do we sweep these things under the rug and act as if they are not there. There are broken people, we were once one of them, and many of us still are.

As the body of Christ we must see past what we think of people, we must look past our judgements and see the heart of humanity. We have to take our eyes off of ourselves for a second and look outward to see the brokenness of this world.

We see the flaws of humanity, and but we don’t see the heart of man. If we did we would know that the person who is walking down the street talking to themselves isn’t crazy they lost everything including hope and no one took the chance to listen to their story. No one took the time to sit with them and lend an ear. No one stopped to pray for them. No one took the time to tell them that there is healing in the Lord, that He sees the hearts of humanity even the ones that are in pieces.

We live in an era where everything must be okay, and when it’s not we put up a facade. This generation has the best poker faces I have ever seen. Because we don’t have time to deal with people who are really suffering, even if that means we ignore our own pain. We don’t have time to dig deep down to the root of our issues and be healed by God. We cover it up with a band-aid until the infection spreads and we can no longer hide it.  We have lost the ability to be vulnerable, we’d rather walk around dying on the inside than go to someone with our pain. We do not want to look weak, even when we are, The scripture tells us that God is near the brokenhearted, why are we walking around harboring pain. We have to realize that it is okay not to be okay.

I walked around broken for so many years, harboring so much pain, anger, self-loathing, hate, the list goes on. From being bullied all throughout school starting at the age of five. From looking in the mirror at the age of seven and hating who I was, and literally saying to myself, “You’re black and ugly”. To choking and hitting myself at the age of eight because the bullying was so bad, I felt like I needed to inflict pain on myself. I suffered secretly for years, and alway put on a smile and pretended like I was okay. It was only when I was twenty one that I really found healing in Christ. I felt like I always had to be okay, I had to put on a mask that said I was strong and confident even though I was broken. I was in pieces, there was still a little girl inside me who never got healed. I was walking around preaching at different churches at the age of sixteen and planned out my suicide at seventeen because I was in so much turmoil that I could not handle it anymore. Or when I had a mental breakdown when I lost my father at the age of eighteen. Because I blamed myself for His death and couldn’t understand why GOd would choose to take him from me. I gave up on GOd and church, but I had people praying for me, there were a few people who could see past my poker face, and that is why I am here today. Someone looked past my acting out and my mask and saw that I was broken. I am living proof that Christ is our healer. I did not have a platform or a place to really talk about what I was going through at the time, which is why I’m doing this, If I have to air my dirty laundry to save someone else I will do it. But God healed me and repaired my heart and if someone didn’t take the time to sit with me and pray for me and see through my pain, I would not be here today. I would probably be dead by my own hand. It is important that we talk about this stuff because it can literally save a life.  

We live in a broken world and people are walking around broken. We know what it is like to be broken our have our hearts broken. If we have encountered the love of God we know what it is like to be healed by our one and only healer. We must  let people know that their is a God, there is a Savior who can take that pain away.

I don’t know who you are but if that’s you, know that there is a Savior. Jesus Christ died to save this broken world, he wants that heart, even if it’s broken. Especially if it’s broken. Even if you have to give it to Him in pieces, he will take it and put it back together. You’re not crazy, you’re not a bad person, you’re hurting. Today is the day for you to get rid of that pain, and start a journey of healing. You do not have to hide it or cover it up. God sees your heart in every condition and He wants it the way it is, so that he can fix it and heal it.

Reflection

1. How’s your heart? Are you broken?
2. Are there some things that need to be healed in your life?
3. Are you walking around like everything is okay but it’s not?
4. Do you believe that God is our healer?
5. Do you believe that He can and will heal you?

Prayer Time

Allow your answers to the above questions  guide your prayer today. Know that God is our healer. We call Him, Jehovah-Rapha, the Lord who heals. Pray for the brokenness of humanity, and if you are broken, bring that heart to God today. Talk to GOd about whatever it is, maybe you don’t even have words, maybe it's tears, maybe you don’t even have that. Just open your heart to God and give HIm what you have. Know that He can heal the broken.

If you need someone to talk to or pray with, reach out to someone. I’m open to talk as well, you can email me, (TheDyamondj@gmail.com).

I love you, I hope you have an amazing day or evening. Share this with someone and open the conversation up to talk about it. Have an amazing day and come back tomorrow for Day 96.