Welcome to The Turnaround!
Introduction
King Solomon wrote this Proverb for his children to learn the value of wisdom. Many people suffer because of another person’s foolish ways, but all people suffer when they ignore wisdom. King Solomon specifically talks about guarding one’s heart because the way we feel about things often dictates our behavior.
Insight
Here we see that if we are intentional about the types of things we allow into our hearts we will grow. We want to make sure we are watching, listening, and studying things that help us to be more godly, loving, and confident in Him. We must be teaching this to our children by both instruction and by example.
Let me share a personal story. My children are now 5 & 8 years old and they have lots of feelings about everything. This is normal. On this day, my son was upset because his big sister wrecked his Picasso, a magnet tile building. He cried and got pretty angry, but he then complained that he wanted a new sister. His daddy and I sat down with him and gently corrected him saying that we understood him being upset. We went on to tell him that those feelings did not justify getting a new sister. In his young mind, those words matched his angry feelings, but he did not really understand the gravity of his wishes. We explained how he can forgive his big sister and be friends again and he could even rebuild his tower!
Life is like that though. We put our best efforts into something and life throws us curve balls. We try out for the school play or the soccer team and we don’t make it or we study so hard for a test and still get a B or a C. We give our heart to something or even someone and our heart gets hurt or worse, crushed. It’s hard to maintain a happy or hopeful attitude when things don’t go the way we hoped, especially when we work hard for those things.
Our heart is valuable. It is where all our dreams, desires, and passions live. It is where we hold Jesus and the Holy Spirit guides us. We cannot allow lies from the enemy, bitterness, anger, selfishness, and pride, to take root! We must build treasure in our heart’!
The best part of learning to guard our heart is that God pours out blessings of more trust, more hope, more confidence and more joy in us!
So future leaders of the world, learn to guard your heart above all else, so the issues of life do not replace the promises of God!
Turnaround Questions
Because your heart is under constant attack, how can you guard it?
Can you see how this teaching is vital for children to learn to guard their heart?
How does keeping your heart bless others?
How can you get involved to mentor children in your area?
Prayer
Dear Father God, we love You! Thank You for giving us so much. Please teach us about our hearts and why it is so important to guard it, especially for the children. Holy Spirit come and heal all the broken places and show us how to keep our hearts whole and healed throughout our lives. Jesus, lead us to have a heart for You. Help us to keep our hearts strong and be a blessing to others all the days of our life! Amen.
