Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. 24 Put away from you crooked speech, and put devious talk far from you. Proverbs 4:23-24
When my wife and I lived in our first home in South Florida, our neighbor had an immaculate yard. She had all kinds of beautiful plants and flowers. Her grass was always the perfect height and a beautiful deep green color. Let’s just say our yard was not quite like hers, though we would have certainly loved for it to be. We often saw our neighbor out working in her yard; pulling weeds, cutting limbs back, cutting the grass, and watering plants. One day my wife casually said to her, “It seems like you’re out here working every day.” Our neighbor replied, “That’s what it takes to have a yard like this.” At that moment I immediately accepted that we would never have a yard like that.
Often, what we want doesn’t match the work we’re willing to put into it. As followers of Jesus, we all want to put sin to death, pursue holiness, and grow in our sanctification. But, I don’t think any of us realize the work that’s involved in such a task. Here in Proverbs, Solomon tells us that we must keep our heart with all vigilance. In other words, we must dedicate ourselves to keeping our hearts. Just as our former neighbor gave daily attention to her yard, this passage is calling us to give moment by moment attention to our hearts.
We must be weeding out the rot that may be growing there: jealously, bitterness, pride, worry, and anger. If we fail to do so, eventually it will spoil the spring of life that ought to be flowing out of us. The spring of life that is meant to water the hearts of our fellow man. In fact, it seems that we can’t even begin to consider verse 24 until we are sure that we’re taking care of verse 23. If we want to control our tongues, we must first seek to control our hearts. Only then will we be ready to speak with grace and honesty to those around us.
Left to ourselves, we would never be able to dig the decay out of our hearts, because the shovel of human effort is infected with the same disease and puts more in the ground with every scoop. Each moment we believe that we have the strength to make ourselves right, is another moment we shake our hands in defiance of the one who sent his Son to die for our rotten hearts. For not only did he die, he also rose that he might send his Spirit to dwell within us and begin the life long process of cleaning us from the inside out. So, the first step of keeping our hearts with all vigilance is to repent and trust in what Christ has already accomplished. The good news is that we have already been declared clean, because of the righteous life of Christ, while the Spirit does his work of making that a reality within us.
So, yes, we have work to do to keep our hearts. But, let’s not forget that God has not left that task completely up to us. He’s ready and willing to walk with us and be the ultimate keeper of our hearts.