Building a Guarded Heart.
It’s one of “those” lines you have heard a million times. “Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life”. It’s advice any good parent would give to help guide you through the process of finding love. Something that could become a tattoo or at the least be tattooed on your soul.
The last couple of weeks, we asked people to share their stories of vulnerability to get closer to the fullness of the Jesus type of love. These stories almost perfectly had one thing in common and that was broken hearts. Vulnerability lead to heart break and that in turn lead to more and more people becoming guarded.
Moving from vulnerability to protection is not what we expected, but maybe this contradiction brings us a little closer to how we should approach relationships. We need both to have meaningful Godly interactions here on earth. God created man to be in relationship and right from the get go He knew that our hearts would either be our saving grace or our downfall.
Have you ever wondered why God chose to make Eve from Adams rib? There are so many more sexy limbs or organs… Hollywood would have gone for the heart itself, taking away from how creatively awesome our God is. We have the rib. The rib that in terms of anatomy helps us breath and protects the heart and lungs. Our ribs physically guard our hearts and help us survive. Right from the start our Father gave us exactly what we needed to love excruciatingly and that is a person to protect our hearts. A partner to be reunited within one flesh to help us survive, just like our ribs do.
We don’t have IKEA in South Africa (yet), but trying to assemble furniture is still daunting. I usually can’t find the crucial piece leaving me to go back to the manual and thus the designers blueprint. Our rib is that crucial piece, the manual the Bible and we even get to know The Designer personally. Building a heart that changes the world, should be easier than building your next dining room table. God at the centre, provides the pieces to live and love with all your heart.
Love the “hell” out of each other.