Guard your heart? Is that vital?

So in the most recent years I have become comfortable with me:-) with who God made me. I'm at peace with the uniqueness of my personality. Numerous times I  contemplated and zeroed on the possibility that I could actually have come from another planet #possiblealien# .

My greatest battle was that of the mind and heart. You see....I remember asking God to fill me with an abundance of love. I wanted to be so much like him, but just as so many prayers I had made in desperation ......I hadn't weighed the wisdom I'd need to handle answers to those prayers. Answers that begged for grace and wisdom to sit them through.

I'd always known how deeply I'd love.... I knew I had the capacity to love beyond myself. I loved with all I was and all I wasn't. .........
See....I had not learned to guard my heart. I supposed that in the same intensity I loved ...so would I be loved. I presumed that everyone one else perceived love and the need to love almost as I did or rather as God did.

I was wrong.....I was desperately wrong!
I now know I should have guarded my heart. Proverbs speaks about the heart as being the source of life:-)

*Proverbs 4:23 Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.*

I ought to have read the last part closely but I didn't. I suppose I over looked it.
You see....for years I was oblivious to the fact that this little part of me was in control of everything else...now I know. The psalmist in Psalm 27:13-14 says "I had fainted had I not believed to see God's goodness".
See at some point I fainted.....my heart fainted, I despaired of life.
Literally speaking my life was drawing to its close. I hadn't guarded my heart and I was falling so fast and so deep. Then the Shepherd of my soul lifted me and drew me out of the deep waters. He spared me:-)

Now everyday I do my best to guard my heart.....I need to and I must.

God's grace

Phoebe
#stilllearning#

God? Could he really do this? For me?

Not too long ago it dawned on me that despite all the years I'd been a follower of Christ, I still fought with the possibilities that God would cause to happen. I'd done it all, I had prayed, fasted, 'overnighted' .....I'd done what all fanatics would do for what they believed in. Time and time again , I professed my confidence in my heavenly father.... My faith stirring up such fire in me when I congregated with God's people, everything seemed possible as we worshipped and prayed together. Sometimes in the flash of a moment I dreaded going back to my own little world where I knew I'd have to face those nasty thoughts that questioned my faith and God's surety in keeping his promise.

I still looked up to the heavens and told myself it'd all be OK. I had moments when I was dangerously convinced God would do far beyond what I imagined....I could hear his voice reminding me that he'd promised on oath to himself that he'd keep his word. But.....see I despised that part of my nature that struggled to believe that my creator, the author of my faith cared enough to out do himself on me...I am human, I know that full well....somewhere deep inside it was my insecurities and fears... The assumption and the lie that I wasn't good enough for God to do the unbelievable just for me.
Then!!!!!! I was reminded of
Isaiah 43.. My heart burst with unimaginable joy#assurance# God had made me....I am his and he is determined to outdo himself for me.

Hebrews 6:17 Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath:

That's all I needed for that one more push to believe that my Father, lover, creator and friend wouldn't let me down:-) and yes he can and he will outdo himself just for me.

Phoebe