The Art of Heart Management

UV 1332/10,000 The Art of Heart Management
Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.
Proverbs 4 v 23
Heart management in the physical, emotional and spiritual sense is the vital factor of human life. Heart management requires due diligence. It requires us to study how best to live. Diligence implies paying attention to what is essential. It implies careful, regular and deep study. It means that we should be life-long learners of how to live. Just as the physical organ –the heart is the engine that powers the human body and its various organs, the emotional heart or love is at the core of human relationships. Just as love is at the core, the love of God and love for God is the spiritual heart of life. Even as we need to maintain the health of our physical hearts by our food style and life style, we need to maintain and develop our relationships. A relationship that is not carefully guarded will soon be like an overgrown ill kept garden. As St Paul wrote, “ these three things remain-faith, hope and love and the greatest of these is love.” It signifies that our heart should be filled with faith, hope and love. Together, faith, hope and love gives rise to the joy of the Lord. The joy of the Lord is our strength. What delights the Lord is what gives us strength and power. The source codes that make life tick are hidden in the human heart. It requires discernment and revelation to uncover the codes of life.

Scripture says that only a fool will trust in his own heart. It also states unequivocally that only a fool will say in his heart that there is no God. We need to look beyond ourselves at the One who cause us to be, the Creator and Redeemer. We are twice beholden to God, first, as Creator and second, as Redeemer in the person and work of Jesus Christ. We cannot rely on our own limited understanding, knowledge and constricted judgement. We need to imbibe the Word of God as a child imbibes its food from the mother’s umbilical cord. This will both sustain and enhance our spiritual heart condition. The emotional and spiritual heart of man is prone to deceit, to both deceive and to be deceived just as the physical heart is prone to various types of diseases. Just as the heart is prone to attacks or myo-cardial infraction, the emotional heart is also subject to attacks. We can have an attack of anxiety or depression or anger. The spiritual heart is prone to the disease of disbelief, cynicism and scepticism.
A good man stores or treasures a lot of good things in his heart. An evil man stores evil in his heart. The former guards his heart against evil. He stays wise and tries to get wiser and protects himself from thorns that could hurt or pain him and snares that could entrap him. A person’s mouth is the fountain spout of the heart. We get an idea of what a person has stored up in his or her heart on the basis of the words he or she speaks. A wise person does not get ensnared by the love of money for one thing. When we were young we were told to learn our lessons “ by heart” but today, we are called to live by heart. Living by heart means to keep our heart’s focus, to seek first God and give priority to His kingdom and His righteousness. It also means to keep our heart’s content: what are we thinking about and giving our time, affection and energy to?

Prateep V Philip