Vigilance

         Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. Keep your mouth free of perversity; keep corrupt talk far from your lips. Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you.  Give careful thought to the paths for your feet and be steadfast in all your ways. Do not turn to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil. (Proverbs 4:23-27)

“Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?  You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. (Matthew 7:3-5)

  Some people think that the heart is a well of good, clear water, and the only guarding it needs is to protect it from evil outside influences. What Solomon tells us here is that we should also guard what we permit to come out of it, because our hearts are the source of what we do. Yesterday, I had a conversation with someone of a “woke” perspective. At one point, she told me that being woke means (among other things) that we recognize that our perspectives aren’t the only perspectives out there and that we accept the fact that we might be wrong. She went on to inform me that I could not be more wrong in my understanding of what “woke” means and that only someone who was very damaged could possibly see anything about being woke that isn’t positive.

     Before we snicker up our sleeves, woke folk are the only ones who cannot see the harm they do. A great deal of harm has been done in the name of Christianity by those who proclaimed themselves to be Christians. A great deal of harm has been done by every group of people out there since time began, and undoubtedly, the vast majority of the groups believed they were doing good. Some may have been doing some good in some ways.

But the reality is that, whether we like it or not, our good intentions often pave the way to Hell. So when Scripture tells us to guard our hearts, it’s as much to keep our evil from escaping as it is to keep evil out.

The same is true about our mouths. For me, the best example of accepted perversity is comedy. More often than not, what is meant to be funny shames, demeans, or objectifies someone, or corrupts someone’s opinion of them.

The eyes, likewise, are a problem. We just want to see. Inquiring minds want to know. There are so many ways that we end up in trouble. Vigilance is needed.