Guard Your Heart

Guard Your Heart

Above all else, guard your heart,

For it is the wellspring of life.

Put away perversity from your mouth.

Keep corrupt talk far from your lips.

Proverbs 4:23-24

My father dropped out of school at some point during high school. What he lacked in formal book learning he made up for with common sense and a raft of street smarts.  He loved to read and constantly picked up little quotes that he passed on to his children:

A bird in hand is better than two in a bush

A stitch in time saves nine.

Two can live as cheaply as one, if one doesn’t eat 
and the other doesn’t wear clothes

He who hesitates is lost.

Put your money where your mouth is.

Engage your brain before you put your mouth in gear.

You’re a day late and a dollar short.

There was, unfortunately, a darker side to my father’s words.  He was a world class cusser – swear words regularly embellishing his speech.  He was a life-long Navy man, and could swear like the proverbial drunken sailor.  His three young children picked up the corrupt words along with the homestyle quotes.

I have struggled with my speech my entire life.  My daily prayer always is that God will hit “pause” on my brain before I utter a perverse word – to give me a chance to think carefully about what I say.

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More like You, Jesus, more like You.

Fill my heart with Your desire

to make me more like You.

More like You, Jesus, more like You.

Touch my lips with holy fire

and make me more like You.

The Faith We Sing, No. 2167