The Springs of Life

 Above all else, guard your heart,

  for it is the wellspring of life. (Proverbs 4:23)

We are still searching for the fountain of youth. All the temples to "abs" and "buns" testify. The diets, the meds, the meditations all point to this obsession. What if the source of life is not in what we do or what we consume, but in who we trust?

Perhaps the truth is that where our hearts go, our life will follow. I mean not so much our feelings, but our will. The center of our being. What does my life revolve around? The sad thing is that we often confuse the fountain of youth with the appearance of youth and then we end up with the foolishness of youth and an obsession with self-care.

However, I find myself more concerned lately with people who want to seem humble and wise enough to abandon such selfish self-care. They confuse self-hatred and self-negation with self-denial. Self-denial values the self enough to say, "No" to the self. Self-negation says, "Don't think about yourself or you'll be selfish." But instead it ends up fussing and fuming about other people or becoming obsessed with some ideology. Rarely does it come out at becoming a truly humble and kind person.

The heart, like a garden, needs care, not neglect. There are some people who do not believe in bugs and pests in this garden. They dump on the fertilizer and then guess what grows up there? But there are others who think that this garden is "stronger" if you leave it to bake in the sun with no water or care. Funny, but you still end up with bugs and weeds. Care involves protecting and weeding as well as cultivating and feeding.

Do you want to know what is springing up from your heart? It's actually not too hard to find out. What do you think about? What comes out of your mouth in unguarded moments? Likely, that's what's in your heart. That's where your life is headed.

I find I need to guard my heart because stuff starts growing there that I don't want. Stuff I don't want for myself or for other people or for God. Ignoring it doesn't make it go away. Neither does covering it up with will-powered efforts at getting better or looking good. No, changing the heart is a different matter.

I find that it begins with making some choices about what I think about regularly, my mental diet. That is where my first freedom lies: what I think about. I would recommend this as a great starting point: Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things. Whatever you have learned from Jesus and those learning from him, or seen in them - put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. (Philippians 4:8-9)