"Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life". The podcast series I'm listening to right now from Northpoint Ministries is about Guarding Your Heart. That everything you do and say comes from your heart. Even those things that you didn't MEAN to do or sag, those are things that come from your heart. That we need to not only guard it and be cautious with it, but before we can do that succesfully we need to cleanse our hearts. WOW, thats a HUGE task!! It talks about guilt, greed, jealousy or envy, and anger. How we need to release these things from our hearts and fill our hearts with the love of God.
What I found most challenging is the guilt part of the series. It says that we need to confess what ever is causing our guilt, not to God cause He already knows, but confess it to whom ever you've commited the act against. I've not done anything to feel great amounts of guilt for in years and years, and those issues have been confessed and forgiven. However just the idea of having to confess a wrong doing that you've done to someone that they may not even know you did, that may in turn hurt that person when you confess it, just seems like you're hurting someone else just to make yourself feel better. To me that seems somewhat selfish. To me the burden of guilt is your punishment for the wrongful act you've done, it's what reminds you not to do that again. Also, in my experience, confessing your wrong doing doesn't necessarily mean that the guilt goes away. As I said it's been years and years, and yet I still feel guilty even though I've been forgiven, yet I know it's not forgotten, which is why I believe I still feel guilty. I dunno, guilt is a hard one to get your head wrapped around, especially if you're a parent. Parental guilt is a never ending, on going thing, no amount of confessing is going to make that one stop.
The greed part of it was interesting too because I certainly don't feel that I'm greedy by any means. However, according to this series, by aquiring and wanting and NEEDING, the newest, the best, the biggest yet not always giving is being greedy. One of the examples was, the lengths we go to to aquire material goods, refinancing, taking out loans, putting leins on things, spending money we don't have, yet when Pastor So n So, asks for a donation for his latest mission trip, we say we don't have the cash on hand. He's not saying that we need to live life in the poor house and never buy anything new, of course not. He's saying that right off the top we need to set aside a percentage to give to God, whether that be your church or some other causes, or charities. Also, the thing that he challenges us to do is to increase our percentage as the years go on, as your income increases, so should your percentate. My husband and I just recently decided to tithe. It's kind of a scary thing to decide to do, although it shouldn't be. We chose to tithe 10%, but when you're writing that check out first, before you pay any bills, you can't help but have a little panic attack hoping that you have enough to pay the bills. Now, we're not making it so we can't pay our bills, however, we have to learn to control our spending habits, which will take some dicipline and time.
Jealousy & Envy, this one I think I do okay on, but I can see where I may have some issues with it. My biggest area of this is when I see women who are thinner or in better shape than I am. I have lots of body issue problems that I'm trying to work through with God's help, but I find myself longing to look like someone else, or have the body of someone else. It's not to say that I'm not a happy person, I am, I just am not happy with my body, which is something only I can change. Which is not an easy thing to do. One of the things that this series asks us to do, is to openly praise those that you have envy/jealousy for. That this will help heal your heart of those issues.
I'm still listening to the anger part of it, so I'll have to get back to you on this one. I at this moment don't feel I have any anger issues, but if I do I'm sure he'll point them out to me LOL
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