Govern Your Heart

Life comes forth from the heart.  Our whole experience of life derives from what is in our hearts.  Our perspectives, meaning-making, significance-finding, even simple joy, they all come from the heart.

Proverbs 4:23 ESV “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.”

The Hebrew word translated as “keep,” more specifically means either protect or govern.  If the meaning is to protect, it is about keeping watch as against an enemy, that nothing bad influences the integrity of one’s heart.  If the meaning is to govern, it is about keeping watch as in restraining a prisoner, that nothing bad comes out of one’s heart.

Obviously, we want to be doing both, protecting and governing, but the second option here seems to be more likely, that of governing.  We are strongly advised to restrain our hearts from wrongdoing.

The concept of the “heart” in the ancient near east involved the whole person:  mind, emotions, will, and affections.  We tend to think of the heart as the place of intentions or emotions only.  The idea here is to use one faculty of the heart, the mind, to keep the rest of the person in check.  We must do so because the tendency of our hearts is to lead us astray.

Disney Has it Backwards

This can be hard to accept because it is contrary to the ever-present and popular Gospel according to Disney, which teaches relentlessly to just follow your heart.  Perhaps, this explains the common saying of Christians these days, “you don’t know my heart.”  They may just be defending their sincerity, but most often something more is going on here.  

Some use this phrase trying to escape an impending spiritual assessment.  For others it is a quick defensive move.  In more severe cases it functions as a way of putting oneself above the Holy Spirit and the Church.  Regardless, those who use the phrase often are in great danger of self-deception on purity of motive and clarity of thinking.  This is because the phrase is used to assert that they themselves know their own heart.

Again, we tend to think of the heart as the place of intentions or emotions only, and that they are good.  This is very dangerous way to think and live, to trust one’s own heart; Proverbs calls it foolish.  Don’t let others, or yourself, get away with this, rather guide them into the truth of Scripture and their souls.

The Truth of the Matter

On the one hand, no one really knows their own heart; yet, on the other hand, we do know how everyone’s heart works.  Here is wisdom worth pondering when handling ourselves and dealing with others, from Proverbs 20:5 ESV “The purpose in a man’s heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out.”

Ultimately, only God really knows what is going on in there, not even the person himself or herself really very much.

Jeremiah 17:9–10 ESV “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? “I the LORD search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.”” 

Proverbs 21:2 ESV “Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the heart.”

This is why we pray like David in Psalm 139:23–24 ESV “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!”

Practically speaking, simply look at the four verses following Proverbs 4:23.

Proverbs 4:24–27 ESV “Put away from you crooked speech, and put devious talk far from you. Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you. Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left; turn your foot away from evil.”

Living the Proverbs

The fullness of life promised in v.23, “Govern your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life,” would be fulfilled in all that comes in the Lord Jesus Christ.

John 4:14 ESV “. . . whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”” 

John 7:38 ESV “Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’””

Sometimes, we can forget the connections between the Old and New Testaments, but they really speak to the one and same final hope.  Jesus Christ grants us the Holy Spirit and His power and ability to perform the Proverbs at a whole new level as the New Covenant People of God.

Ezekiel 36:26–27 ESV “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.” 

Romans 8:2 ESV “For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.”

In Christ Jesus, we get to re-experience Proverbs from a greater perspective and with a greater purpose!