Wednesday, June 13, 2018

Keeping Your Heart, Part 2


When I started thinking about what to share as a devotion for Parent Practicum, Proverbs 4:23 almost immediately came to mind- not because I do so well at heeding this verse, but because I needed to be reminded of the importance of the work of heart keeping in my life as a Christ follower and homeschool mom.  

“Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.” (ESV)

In 17th century puritan writer John Flavel’s book Keeping the Heart, he breaks this verse down into 3 parts: The Exhortation, the How and the Why.

The Exhortation {the urgent advice or counsel, encouragement} of this verse is to: 
“keep your heart”

John Flavel wrote 
“The heart of man is his worst part before it is regenerated, and it is his best part afterwards.” 
and
“The greatest difficulty in conversion is to win the heart to God; and the greatest difficulty after conversion is to keep the heart with God.”

The word “Heart” here is not referring to the organ, but it is used as a metaphor for the soul. In Rom. 1:21 the word “heart” refers to “the understanding”, in Psalm 119:11 it refers to “the memory” & in 1 John 3:10 it means “the conscience”. 
In Prov. 4:23 “heart” refers to the “whole soul or inner man.”

Flavel continues 
“…though the expression, keep thy heart, seems to put it upon us as our work, yet it does not imply a sufficiency or ability in us to do it. We are as able to stop the sun in its course, or to make the rivers run backward, as by our own skill and power to rule and order our hearts…and yet Solomon speaks properly enough when he says, keep thy heart, because the duty is ours, though the power is God’s; what power we have depends upon the exciting and assisting strength of Christ. Grace within us is beholden to grace without us. John 15:5 “Without Me you can do nothing.” 

How are we supposed to follow this exhortation to keep our heart? The verse tells us 
“with all diligence”.
Pastor Flavel writes 
“The Hebrew is very emphatic…your hearts will be gone otherwise and this vehemence of expression with which the duty is urged plainly implies how difficult it is to keep our hearts, how dangerous to let them go.”

Keeping our heart is personal, hard, important work. 

Romans 12:2 says 
“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” 
As the mind goes, so goes the heart and vice versa.
My heart left to itself will lean toward conforming to this world, susceptible to creeping sins, taking over unaware.

Application: You have probably heard this keeping of the heart called a Personal Quiet Time. You may have been told you have to get up early to have this quiet time. Well, you don’t have to, but as Elisabeth Elliot says in her Hints for Quiet Time 
“there are plenty of scriptural precedents for that (Jesus rose ‘a great while before day’; the psalmist said, ‘in the morning shall you hear my voice’). If you meet the Lord before you meet anybody else, you’ll be ‘pointed in the right direction’ for whatever comes.” 
And who knows what may come, how often and how much at once in a homeschool day?!? Elisabeth Elliot continues in that sort of dry humor of hers to say 
“God knows how difficult it is for some to do this, and if you have a reason you can offer Him why early morning won’t work, I’m sure He’ll help you to find another time.”  (Only an Elisabeth Elliot can say something like that and we are cool with it!) She continues-
“Sometimes the children’s afternoon nap time can be quiet time for a mother. At any rate, plan the time.” From her book Keep a Quiet Heart.

So say you do manage to drag yourself out of bed before anyone else in the house is awake. You know you have about 15 precious minutes and your groggy mind is trying to remember what you are supposed to be doing. One way you can start is by putting pen to paper. It’s been said that 
“you don’t really know what you are thinking until you write it down.” 
What we think is a guide to how our heart is doing. 




Several years ago I learned a simple journal study from listening to Nancy Leigh DeMoss Wolgemuth interview a lady name Yvonne Welch. Yvonne, a pastor’s wife, had been through a very trying time physically, emotionally and spiritually. Here is part of what she told Nancy:


“I’d just come home from the hospital with Lucy, our fourth child.
A very godly, older woman brought me a meal. I was so happy to see that meal. 
But she could tell. She could look at me and say, 
“You are hurting….”
And she was right. I really was hurting. I was depressed. 
She looked at me, and she said, “Yvonne, you really don’t know God.”
I remember thinking, ‘I’ve been a Christian since I was nine years old. I walked down the aisle at the Second Baptist Church in Houston. I don’t understand.’
She [the older lady] said, “…I want to challenge you. I want to share with you a personal devotional that I have every day, and I want you to start doing it.”
She said, “I want you to take thirty minutes in the morning.”
I thought, How can I take thirty minutes with babies and children and being in the ministry? 
But I was desperate. I was so desperate.
So I began to do what she shared with me, and it changed my life.
She encouraged me to get a notebook and to write at the top of the page the word praise and put five things to praise God for. Then the word confess, five things to confess and then thanksgiving, five things to thank Him for. And then intercession, five things to intercede for someone else. And then supplication. [an earnest request]
So she said, “What I want you to do is to take Psalms and I want you to be looking for five attributes of God every single day. I want you to write those attributes down. After you’ve found five, that’s as far as you read. Then the next day I want you to look for five more.”
Nancy, I’ve been doing that now for thirty years because I’ve seen God’s character as I have written it down under the outline of praise, that He is our rock, He is our fortress, He is our shield. He is my glory. He is the lifter up of my head.”

(Go here to hear or read the whole interview.)

After listening to that interview I starting using this method and one of the things I love about it is how simple it is. All you need is a notebook, paper/pen and your Bible. When I do this I sometimes find that I’m led to continue writing on the next page, words spilling out that let me know the state of my heart and then become a prayer. Some times I don’t even get the basic list filled out. Too many times I don’t pick my notebook up at all. 
At all time My God is full of Grace.


There are so many good studies and devotionals available to help guide your quiet-time-heart-keeping. Soak your soul in Scripture and try to take at least a few minutes to just be quiet and listen.

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