FIERCELY GUARD IT!



The need/instruction to guard something implies that the something has value.  The greater the value, the greater the need to protect it.


In the USA, Fort Knox guards the majority of the country’s gold reserves and the Secret Service guards the president.  The Royal Guard guards the King of England and multiple high profile Hollywood actors have their own, personal bodyguards.  Even access to information is guarded by encryption-based software security systems.  It would take someone with an exceptional set of highly specialised skills and the ability to meticulously execute it with calibrated precision to pose even a marginal threat to any of these guarded commodities.  


Consider the following conversation between a grandmother (Nana) and her four-year-old grandson (Mikey).

Nana:  Are you okay, my sweetheart?

Mikey:  I really don’t feel so well.

Nana (a little concerned that he might be coming down with something):  Where in your body are you not feeling well?

Mikey:  It’s my heart, Nana.  My heart is definitely not well.

Nana:  Would a hug and a kiss help to make your heart feel better?

Mikey:  Yes sure, Nana, it would help.

Nana crouches down, embraces Mikey in a warm hug and plants a gentle kiss on his forehead.

Nana:  Did that help?

Mikey:  Yes it did, thank you Nana!


The author of the book of Proverbs instructs us to guard our hearts.  It goes further by substantiating this instruction with a core definition of our hearts.  OUR HEARTS ARE THE WELLSPRINGS OF LIFE.  If we apply the Oxford Dictionary definition of wellspring, then the Proverbs instruction becomes:


Above all else, guard your hearts, for it is the abundant source of life.


Now consider the following.  Fort Knox guards only a finite amount of gold, not the source of all gold.  At any given moment, the Royal Guard, Secret Service and above-mentioned bodyguards guard a single king, president or actor.  All software security systems guard only a subset of information, not the source of all information.  Unlike the restrictions on all of these guarded entities, life is an absolute state.  If life is present, ALL of it is present and if life is absent (death), NONE of it is present.  Therefore, the value of an abundant source of life has to be priceless, it is worth more than anything else on earth.


Mikey’s heart is an abundant source of life, but for him to be able to express hurt like he did, he had to have been exposed to a situation where his guard was down and his exposed heart pierced.  Plausibly a scenario where another 4-year-old turned down his invitation to play together.  Mikey’s Nana helped him restore his guard and heal his heart.  All it took was a single hug and kiss.  There are no special skills involved in giving a hug and/or a kiss.  Anyone with arms, a mouth and basic communication skills can perform these actions with ease.  Mikey is only four years old, he needs the adults in his life to help him develop the skills to guard his heart.  In fact, like Mikey, all of us need to develop the skills to guard our hearts. 


Even a real-life James Bond with highly specialised skills will likely have an impossibly difficult time to get into Fort Knox, while the unspecialised skill of uttering ignorant words by someone barely capable of coherent speech, can pierce a heart and cause unspeakable hurt.  Perhaps we should learn a thing or two from the chief of security at Fort Knox.  After all, we are instructed to guard something far more valuable than gold!


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