Proverbs 4:20 - 23

²⁰ My child, pay attention to what I say.
    Listen carefully to my words.
²¹ Don’t lose sight of them.
    Let them penetrate deep into your heart,
²² for they bring life to those who find them,
    and healing to their whole body.

²³ Guard your heart above all else,
    for it determines the course of your life

Once again Solomon promises that these words, this operation manual, will bring life (reviving, spring-like refreshing waters) to our being.   I imagine the parched terrain of a heart that is settled into unforgiveness.    Imagine this drinking in of refreshing water and life, through holy obedience. The heart coming alive again, beating in unison with the Father’s.  Dead bones walking once again, walking towards healing and health as the lepers walked out their healing on the way to the Temple.   Holy obedience is that same walk the lepers took in Luke.  Let’s look at the story here:

¹¹ Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. ¹² As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy^[a] met him. They stood at a distance ¹³ and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”¹⁴ When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed.¹⁵ One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. ¹⁶ He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.¹⁷ Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? ¹⁸ Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?” ¹⁹ Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.” Luke 17:11-19New International Version (NIV)

We, like the lepers, call out to our Holy God from the fringes of the throne room calling out to Jesus, “Have pity on us” – Jesus responds to their plea and gives them a direction – “GO Show yourselves to the priest”  AS THEY WENT they were healed.  We are being told – “Go show yourself to Wisdom, let her write her virtues on your heart, AN YOU WILL LIVE”.   We will find this life as we walk Wisdom out.

We are told to guard our heart, the word “mishmar”, represents a visual of a prison guard.  The heart, being the thing contained and guarded, watching everything that is allowed to flow in as in 
  *heart seen as moral character
·  heart as a seat of appetites
·  heart as a seat of emotions and passions
·  heart as a seat of courage
We are to stand watch over our appetites, passions, and moral character. I think you would have to have Wisdom written on the tablet of this heart, so that it is being guarded from WITHIN the prison cell.  If we try to stand guard outside the cell and dictate what is coming and going – sin can present itself in an alluring way and we may be tempted.  To write the messages on our heart, to incorporate Wisdom into our heartbeat, is to guard from within, while we guard from outside.   As we continue to walk out Proverbs, I am grateful to Solomon for continuing to express the importance of Wisdom. Each time he brings it back to our attention, I feel there is a greater revelation into how to walk with Lady Wisdom as our companion.
I imagine my heart in a bird cage, beautiful and ornate.  This heart of mine isn’t imprisoned, it is protected. The precepts of Wisdom are beginning to be written on her, as she incorporates these teachings into her very heartbeat. I have a  wall around her,  meant to guard her further from the ravens that circle overhead, wanting to peck at the Wisdom that is being sown, grab the seeds and extinguish the love affair. I stand there, meek and mild, unprepared and wildly under qualified -on guard-watching overhead  for sheep in wolves clothes, begging Holy Spirit to discern for me what is allowed into the inner sanctuary of my heart.
What about you?  What visual images do you have as we continue on our journey? What does guarding your heart mean to you?