A Meaning of Guarding Your Heart

I've been thinking about something my friend Brittany and I were talking about this weekend a lot lately. She was speaking of how she is reading the book Captivating. In that book, the author speaks of how we as women are to be vulnerable yet guard our hearts at the same time. I remember the both of us half laughing at that statement because it seems so impossible at times, an apparent paradox. Yet we both know it is something we are to do.

But how?

I started putting together bits and pieces of this lesson that God has been teaching me as of late. Remembering Brittany's and my conversation seemed to put the final puzzle piece in place as to what God is teaching me. In my bible study we were talking about forgiveness, and I was thinking of different examples in my life. I know that I struggle with expecting people to bear the same traits or qualities as I do, and then when they don't, I feel like they let me down in some way. I choose to magnify my strengths and their weaknesses, rather than looking to their own unique strengths. I have to embrace individual people and what they bring, not expecting them to be like me.

Continuing on from this, I hold the people close to me to a pretty high standard. There are very few people in my life (I can count them on one hand) that I hold this standard for. It's a level of expectation and dependence on those people to fulfill the roles that God has placed them in in my life. As I know I have stated many times before, I am learning that I do need those other people in my life, because God has appointed them as such. It is not good for man to be alone. Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 states this well. My life will be fuller as a result, because I have to learn to not only trust those people in my life, but also trust God that He is doing it for my own good.

But the key part of this lesson I finally understand. Being dependent is one way of showing vulnerability, but guarding your heart means knowing that Jesus is the only constant, the only one who will never disappoint. Guarding your heart means letting Jesus cover those disappointments that people cause, guaranteed to happen in our lifetimes. It means understanding that people will always disappoint us and being okay with that, because we know He is far greater.

It's a lesson in process for me. For the first time in my life, this year I have begun to truly let people in. It's so sweet to see what God is doing with that and how my relationships with people have blossomed as a result. My standards are still pretty high for those people closest to me...and perhaps that's something I need to reevaluate with God. But when I am disappointed, I am learning to run to Jesus...

Run to Jesus...