We often hear “guard your heart.”
New relationships. Exciting opportunities. Dreams and goals.
It feels like it’s a backup plan. Like, guard your heart so you don’t get hurt. But that dehumanizes our experience. Because a person with walls up can’t receive.
How realistic is protecting your heart? Is it practical? Is it doable?
All I knew was that people told me to guard my heart because out of it comes the wellspring of life. But that felt like a fancy phrase without the practical steps to make it happen.
How I Learned to NOT Guard My Heart
I was a new believer, just over 30. I made my mistakes and didn’t consider myself innocent in the pain I caused or experienced. I knew the world could lie, hurt, and deceive. But once I got on the staff of a church, I thought I had escaped those things and entered the closest thing to heaven.
I trusted the staff and especially my senior pastor. I was the worship leader. I loved serving the Lord. I was like a new bride in love. This was the best job ever!
It wasn’t too long before the honeymoon was over.
The senior pastor said some inappropriate things to me. I reported him to the elders, resigned, and tried to move past it.
But my heart hurt. I was disappointed in someone I had trusted. I was disappointed that I trusted too much. Eventually, I found myself at a crossroads.
I had to choose to allow hurt to transform me or harden my heart.
Someone gave me the number of a counselor on staff at Focus on the Family. He said the most brilliant thing to me:
Jill, you have one heart. If you harden it to what happened, you also harden it to the Lord. But to feel the pain is to let your heart be soft with God.
I realized it was okay to hurt for a bit because it validated what I went through. And ignoring pain doesn’t make room for healing.
It was in the hurt that God could heal.
But God couldn’t heal what I wouldn’t give Him.
Once I realized this, I was able to do three things that allowed me to understand why NOT guarding my heart was a good thing.
I had deeper intimacy with God.
I had never known such love as when I was sharing my hurt with the Lord. He showed me His promises in His Word that I’d known in my head but hadn’t experienced in my heart. God wants us to have a relationship, not just religion. Relationships are messy, but we can’t have a relationship without experience of one, right? They go together.
This also transfers to how we interact with one another. We can’t just know about a person; we need an experience with them to grow in a relationship with them. To avoid anything that may lead to hurt also keeps us from love.
Love is well worth the risk of being hurt.
I was able to forgive faster.
A Guarded Heart
My personal opinion—Let God guard your heart and be your protector. While you look for safe places to share it. Partner with God in the discovery journey. If it’s a friendship, work colleague, or a romantic relationship.
When you have a guarded heart, you don’t fully embrace who others are.
You also don’t fully forgive. Your heart has to be soft to forgive. When it’s hard, you are the one who hurts, not the other person. That means it will hurt during the process, but the other side of it is glorious. Why? When you love the other person enough to leave the consequences to God, you are saying, “They owe me nothing,” and you can move on with a greater sense of peace. God loves it when we love in His name, because He knows it never fails. It doesn’t fail on you or on the other person.
Most of us put up walls because we are afraid to get hurt. Because of those walls, we get hurt. A cycle of protecting and hurting begins. That’s when offense and unforgiveness can take root in your heart. Once that happens, you have begun guarding your heart against God, too. That’s what we call a hard heart. We have an awesome opportunity to grow in the image of God when we put ourselves out there and take the chance of getting hurt. When we are hurt and forgive, we look more like Jesus.
That is well worth the risk of being hurt.
P.S. When you are dating someone and you are excited about where the relationship is going, you can’t just guard your heart; otherwise, the other person will notice that wall and get the feeling you don’t trust them—and suspect you don’t want to move forward.
Loving Again
I was able to trust and love others again.
To love others well, we must put ourselves in the line of fire and take a chance. We aren’t robots who can spend time with people without growing attached in some way. God never made us to hold back until we are SURE they will be trustworthy and honor us in a relationship. There are no guarantees. Getting to know someone isn’t a promise of a carefree forever relationship.
You have to give some of your heart because that’s what humans do. It’s also a sign of a Christian. We love because Jesus first loved us. Even if they don’t love us back.
Avoiding intimacy with people because we are afraid of getting hurt is a sure plan to get hurt. But there is a chance it could lead to a long-lasting relationship.
Long-lasting. That is well worth the risk of being hurt because the reward is so valuable.
Here are a few things you can do to make sure your unguarded heart is going to be safe:
1. Find out if someone is trustworthy by being friends; see if they act like a good friend to you.
2. Watch to see how they honor others, because it’s a reflection of how they will treat you.
3. See if they care more about what you want than what they need.
4. Determine if they forgive quickly and completely after arguments.
5. Find out if they have long-standing relationships and friendships.
I’m sure there are other things that will reveal a safe relationship, but hopefully that will give you a good place to begin evaluating.
Don’t guard your heart and end up alone.
Give your heart wisely. Forgive completely. Love fully.
Unguarded.
