Sunday, December 7, 2008

The Wellspring of Life: Protecting and Providing for the Heart

“More than all else you guard, watch your heart, for out of it, [come] the surges of life.” –Proverbs 4:23.[1]

We always find time for the things we enjoy. If we don’t our lives get sad and forlorn. But what if we engage in things we enjoy and they aren’t good? What if the desires of our hearts drive us to unhealthy passions?

Our entire being is wrapped up in the heart, which is the seat of the emotions and the basis of our intent, always. What we think and how we use our minds is driven primarily from our hearts. Decisions are based on feelings. Feelings drive thoughts and thoughts drive action. The ‘wellspring of life,’ as it is also referred as, is the common source of both anguish and joy. “The heart is imaged as a water source from which life erupts.”[2] Whether we like it or not, the heart is a spring welling with water--it can either gush fresh water as from a mountain spring or reek like polluted sewer water. Blessing or cursing will be the inevitable life result.

Proverbs 5:15-18 continues the water-containing imagery of springs, wells, streams, cisterns, fountains. Self-control over our sexual desires is to be the particular result here, but the allusion doesn’t finish there. Here the father instructs and urges the son to heed well his advice as a catalyst for blessing and life. Being attentive to our hearts (our inner workings) is to be appropriately responsive to God.

It is our job to allow God to purify our hearts. This is a process of allowing him to test our hearts, our emotions and intents. And this is the best thing for us. Our best protection and provision ahead is a heart full for God, and empty (as far as possible) of our own desires. God here instructs us in ways to enjoy the truly good things in the right proportions and at the right times, and certainly in the right ways.

Copyright © 2008, S. J. Wickham. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

[1] Roland E. Murphy, Proverbs – Word Biblical Commentary Vol. 22 (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1998), p. 26-29. This is Murphy’s translation based on the literal original languages.
[2] Murphy, Ibid, p. 28.

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