In researching what was presented to me as a “fun fact of the day” by a stranger across the rack at the thrift store; I came across Proverbs 4:23.
“”Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.”
The moment I read this verse, I realized all the ways God has showed me the importance of this in just the past week. I was summoned for jury duty 3 days last week and had quite a bit of time just sitting and waiting. With time on my hands, I got to read a couple books I’ve had for months now and also listened to a few messages on YouTube by some of my favorite speakers. Through 2 books and probably a dozen videos, somehow every one found someway to circle around one Parable….Jesus feeding the 5000. The focus wasn’t on Jesus feeding the multitude itself but on how Jesus was using the multitude to feed and re-energize the disciples. The 12 were exhausted physically and emotionally, to the point they asked if they could just send the multitude away. I know I’ve been there before, that point your just done, exhausted, all up in your feelings and everything looks impossible. Really though how silly were those 12 men, they knew who was there with them, I mean did they really just ask Jesus to give them break? Were they really worried about what those people are going to eat? Seriously, they were really too tired for an evening of teaching and miracles from Jesus….the Jesus, you know Christ!!! I mean he was were the party was at!!! They wanted to send the multitude away for what, to sit among themselves and compare who was more tired or who had the hardest week? Maybe they needed to sit and vent about that difficult thing they had to deal with that day or I know it was the only day they were going to have free that week. It seems it’s all great and good to be a follower of Jesus until that day your just not really in the mood to deal, then we completely forget all the miracles and grace we have seen. Once everything starts pressing in we let our emotions take over, kicking truth out the door. Its funny how we will let emotions trump what we know to be true about spending time with Jesus. We know our God is bigger than anything in our path, yet with just the right emotional recipe, seasoned with a little fatigue and we will suggest another path and ask God to give it to us just so we don’t have to deal.
Well, that “fun fact of the day” from the gentleman at the thrift store was about emotion verses knowledge too. I don’t remember the exact numbers he told me, because I went straight in to “stranger danger” when he started talking to me out of the blue, he seemed to be popping up in what ever corner of the store I was in and he finally got close enough to speak. I believe he said in the Hebrew emotion is mentioned twenty something times and knowledge over a 100. Later on that evening I was Netflix binging on a remake of one of my fav 90’s shows. In the show one character told another “there is a reason God put a cage over your heart” and that really stood out to me.
The next day, God did what only he can do and allowed someone to open up and share their story with me, again completely out of the blue. What is beautiful and magnificent about our God is, unknown to either of us we have similar stories . There was a moment I looked across the table and said “I know exactly what your feeling” and it was 100% whole heartedly true. I knew……I know those exact emotions. They are the emotions that kept me in bondage for over half my life. The ones I have to guard my heart from daily. They are the root of my doubts, insecurities, and the brokenness that kept me circling around the hope Jesus offered for years. I’d pick that hope up on good days and well on bad put it in a box and walk around it, asking Jesus, “Can you give me another path please, I’m too tired for this one!!!” For so long I relied on what my emotions told me instead of what I knew to be true about God. When I got tired and something looked impossible, I believed it was. Sometimes for only a moment but I believed it and in that moment I was open for the enemies attack. When I thought I wasn’t enough, didn’t have enough to give, or there wasn’t enough to go around; I stood in front of Jesus and told him there just wasn’t enough and I allowed my emotions to overpower what I knew to be true about God. It sounds a lot like 12 guys from back in the day huh!?!
I don’t know the exact ratio of emotion to knowledge in the Bible but I do know what Proverbs 4:19-27 is saying to me. Abide in the knowledge God has given us about Himself and His character. Trust in Him and draw close. Don’t step to the right or left to get around what’s is in front of you, stare it straight in the face and walk through it knowing the truth of Gods’ Word. Always remember there is a cage around your heart for a reason, not only just to keep things out and protect it, but also to hold things in. Be sure the things being kept in are the Words of God and the truth in the identity He has given you. Don’t let fleeting emotions be what dwells in your heart, emotions that can be manipulated by one who is out only to destroy and steal from you.
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