Guard Your Heart

We pay a lot of attention to our bodies regarding our health and nutrition. Yet, how much attention do we pay to the health of our emotional and spiritual life? 

In today's excerpt from my book Intelligence For Your Life, I discuss how the external world has a great bearing on our inner lives.

“Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life” Prov. 4:23 (NIV). At first, this Scripture seems pretty self-explanatory until you start to dig deeper and realize that the “suggestion” from King Solomon was really not that at all. It was a warning, an admonition. Our hearts are the ‘wellspring of life,’ and you know what happens when a wellspring is contaminated by impurities: sickness, even death for those who depend on the wellspring for their sustenance. If you don’t guard the purity of your heart, you risk losing your life. With all the madness that is available to you today—on television, on the newsstand, on billboards, on the Internet—not guarding your heart can lead you horribly astray.

I have known this scripture for most of my adult life but it never came into focus until we had our daughter, Prima. Having a kid in the house—or in your car—suddenly makes you hypersensitive to everything. That guy is driving too fast. Those teenagers are cursing. That magazine in the store is disgusting. And when your new sensitivity alarm starts blaring, you are struck with the realization that somewhere along the way you stopped noticing all the inappropriate material in the world. You got used to it.

Have you ever driven into work and tuned in to Fluffy and Zippy and the Morning Zoo only to realize that all they’re doing is being horribly cynical, making fun of helpless people, talking about sex all morning and going right up to the edge of what the permissive FCC will allow? Have you also noticed that you brought a lot of that same cynicism into your workplace with you?  Into your home?

There is a great line from The Untouchables movie when Elliot Ness realizes he has lost his pure heart in his quest to "nail’ Gangster Al Capone. He says, “I have become what I beheld.” Distracted by the prize of putting the legendary Capone behind bars, Ness uses tactics that he would never have considered before engaging Capone. He became that which he most despised, because he spent every waking hour (and many sleeping hours) gazing straight at it.

The danger we face by not “guarding our hearts” is that we can become what we behold.

I worked for Entertainment Tonight for ten years. It was a great place to work, full of some wonderful people. But every day I was reporting on this act of celebrity selfishness, that act of celebrity rudeness, this celebrity divorce, that celebrity tantrum. And, face it, a lot of our sources were gossips and backstabbers. I got desensitized to a lot of pretty rotten stuff as I worked on that show. After a while, actors were not really people to me, they were stories. When a Hollywood star got busted for whatever reason, all of us in the celebrity media were like a pack of blind dogs in a meat-house. Peoples’ personal lives became our currency. And, trust me, when you make a seven-figure salary reporting that stuff you find a way to justify it.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not my intention to play the self-righteous card or to bite the hand that fed me for ten years. I only mean to point out that while I lived in that world I surrendered my heart to it.

John

Email John:  johnsblog@teshmedia.com

We all surrender to our hearts to something - good or bad.  Check out my book, Intelligence For Your Life:  Powerful Lessons For Personal Growth, for more tips on how to take care of your heart.  You can purchase my book at your favorite bookstore or online at Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.

Here's what one reader said about Intelligence For Your Life: 

John, i just finished reading your book tonight. I had to read a non-fiction book for my English class. I am a sophomore at Boyd Buchanan in Chattanooga. I actually liked your book a lot. I was really glad to find out  you believe in God and think spirituality is good. Be cool, John. Listen to you later - Jake

Comments

[stephenmosher]

dear john boy does that sound funy, I listen all the time to the radio show and I read the story about garding youre heart, and I tuned in one night to listen to youre show and you dont know how much I really look foward to hearing good sound advice, or information about things, I only started listening just a little wile ago but the story about garding youre heart I never really knew what that meant till you explained, I learned a lot about keeping youre options open well you said to close some of those doors you were right I dont need them all what am I gonna do with them all! just pick one life is easier that way, youres truly stephen H mosher and youre show is way better than howard stern.