Number 3 out of 4 thoughts on a healthy spiritual heart

In the last blog we talked about the second of four thoughts on how to have a healthy spiritual heart. I've blogged a lot on having a healthy physical and emotional heart, but having a healthy spiritual heart is just as important. I write from my faith and my own paradigm.

King Solomon of Israel, one of the wisest men to walk the earth, said in the Book of Proverbs,  "Above all else, guard your heart, for it is a well spring of life" or in another version says, "for out of it spring the issues of life". So if the most important thing to one of the wisest men ever is to guard your heart, then it's time to listen. Thankfully he then proceeds to write four lines of instruction. 

"Put away perversity from your mouth; keep corrupt talk far from your lips.

Let your eyes look straight ahead, fix your gaze directly before you.

Make level paths for your feet and take only ways that are firm.

Do not swerve to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil." 

Let's look at the third one: "Make level paths for your feet and take only ways that are firm."

3. Navigate Life's Journey Well.

One way we can guard our heart is to avoid making foolish decisions that will lead to miserable outcomes. Living a life full of drama and stress is a great recipe for an unguarded heart full of anxiety, sorrow, unforgiveness and hurt. You can protect your heart by avoiding foolish reckless decisions that lead you to unsteady roads full of crooked paths and sinking quicksand. 


Here are a few thoughts on navigating life's journey well:

  

A. Chart the Course: When you are traveling along on the journey of life, take a moment and reflect on where you are heading. You may have never taken the time to really decide the direction your life is going. The reality is many a person has capsized, shipwrecked or been lost at sea because they lost sight of where they were headed or really never took the time to chart the course or check the weather conditions. 


Steven Covey, the author of 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, talks a lot about "begin with the end in mind". He goes on to ask what do you want read at your funeral? How many lives do you want affected by your life? Do you want people mourning for you because of the amazing impact you made on their life and the world or perhaps instead someone dancing in a red dress on your grave. The choice is really yours and it starts today. 


People work their whole lives for a paycheck and then what? They look back on a life of hard work, even raising a family but what contribution did it make to the world and what did it matter in scope of eternity. It's at this point they wonder what their purpose was and still is. 


Everyone has a purpose and it's up to you to figure it out, of course I suggest you pursue the discovery with prayer. There are tell tale signs of a person's purpose. Finding out what you love to do, what makes you angry and what you are really good at are three ways in helping you determine your purpose. For example, I love to help people, I get angry when someone takes advantage of a vulnerable people and I am good at influencing others and anything creative. So this tells me that I can use my creativity, like writing, to help people who are in need and influence others to do the same. Someone once said "if you can do for a living what you love to do then you'll never work a day in your life."


Figuring out your purpose will help you know where you're going and if you know now where you are going then you will begin now to make decisions that lead you to your destination. You might need to change degrees, reach to do an internship or relocate to follow your dreams. Whatever it is, the dream in your heart will steer you towards your destination. 


B. Use Wisdom as Your Compass: The main thing that you need to guide you is your compass. Your compass will keep you out of unmarked waters. Your compass (or GPS) for life's journey is Wisdom. Let Wisdom be your compass. 

There are two major schools in life that will teach you everything you need to know. The first is the school of wisdom and the second is the school of 'hard knocks'. I have attended both and have to say that gleaning from the school of wisdom is a much better way than learning through hard knocks or poor choices. Proverbs 19:18 says, "He who gets wisdom loves his own soul; he who cherishes understanding prospers."  

The school of wisdom is advice from people further along the journey. It would be foolish to ignore the advice of people who have already sailed in the same waters. Learn from others whose lives resemble the destination you want. If you want wisdom on how to keep a healthy marriage then talk to people who've been married for a long time. If you want to be a Supreme Court Justice then study the career paths of those who've become Justices. It's a no brainer. Find the people who have success in areas you want to pursue and learn from them.  

Here are some very wise people that I look to regularly for wisdom:

Finances = Dave Ramsey 

Leadership =John Maxwell 

Emotional and Spiritual Health= Joyce Meyer 

Physical Health= Jordan Rubin,

Dr. Oz 

Time Management= Steve Covey 

Leadership & Creativity= Michael Hyatt 

I know so many people who just want to be happy, married, rich, or famous but the reality is learning wisdom is the key to having prosperity in your life. Wisdom is so easily accessible. The Book of Proverbs in the bible is full of wisdom, the writers listed above have written tons of books on this subject, and there are pastors and leadership gurus who talk on personal growth and development all over the web and bookstores. Use wisdom as your compass and you will reach your destination.

C. develop healthy relationships with your crew mates: You may have chosen some of your crew mates already or they have been chosen for you but from this point forward take responsibility for your choice in future relationships and set the tone on the one's you have now. When you are sailing it is important that you partner with others who are up for the journey. They don't have to be skilled sailors but none the less they should be willing to learn and able to go the distance. Steven Covey once said "Our greatest joy and our greatest pain comes in our relationships with others." Let's learn to steward relationships well. 


The biggest thing that can devastate a relationship is unrealistic expectation. If we are constantly expecting a person in our lives to do something or behave a certain way and they are not then we will ultimately be disappointed. The best way to avoid this disappointment is developing excellent communication skills. Doing this can improve the condition of relationships and help to foster an open and safe atmosphere where intimacy can be bred. Stop building walls and start building bridges through communication.
Here's a couple ways to do that:

1. Begin to embrace honesty in communication. I'm not saying throw tactfulness or politeness out the window but strive for integrity in what you communicate and be sure to tell people what you want. No one is really a mind reader so stop expecting them to do what you want without telling them what you want.



2. Set Boundaries. You have to communicate what you are comfortable with and what you are not. Some things are not ok and it's good to express that. Also honor others boundaries. 


3. Eliminate manipulation and control from your language. Eliminate trying to control others to get your way. When you do, you'll discover you don't always know what's the best thing after all. When you try to control or manipulate others you will make them miserable and eventually lose out in the end. Also, don't allow yourself to be manipulated. I have found that if someone is trying to manipulate me, I will just call them out on it. "Are you trying to guilt me?" Sometimes people don't even know they are doing it. It's good to let them know you aren't controlled by manipulation. 


4. Forgive. Quit keeping score. Communicate forgiveness and receive forgiveness and you will see a freedom and health in your relationships that will bring about great joy. 


Go into relationships with the thought to give and not take. Be considerate, thoughtful, kind and most importantly express your love to people. I love this quote by Steven Levine, "If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting?"

Navigate Life's Journeys well because you want to arrive at your desired destination with all your crew in tow. 

1 out of 4 thoughts on keeping a healthy spiritual heart!

I have blogged a lot about a healthy physical and emotional heart. The next several blogs are on having a healthy spiritual heart. I write from my own  paradigm for it is the only one I have, so I am writing from my faith and beliefs. My mom was in the hospital in April because of a ventricular fibrillation, meaning her heart wasn't pumping out the blood like it was suppose to. They say 95% of people don't survive a V-fib and that most people die within the first 3 to 5 minutes. Thank God we were already in the hospital when it happened and I began to pray, 40 minutes later there was a heartbeat and a few days later she was off life support and 4 months later she's walking 2 miles everyday, no brain damage and living a great healthy inspiring life. This incident is what really inspired me to start blogging on having a healthy core. I believe that we are so interwoven spiritually, physically and emotionally that each realm can affect the other's health. So I decided I wanted to have a core on every level that was healthy and strong. I watched my mom so sick from a weakened physical heart and it broke my emotional heart. So later I thought about that experience and wondered what a sick spiritual heart looked like. There are a lot of things that can get into our spiritual heart that can make it sick and cause decay and rot. Before I found Jesus I had a lot of unforgiveness, bitterness and self-loathing in my heart. When I found the Lord He removed all of those battle scars, hurts and disappointments. That was however thirteen years ago and life happens between now and then. I've had plenty of opportunities to become bitter again, hold unforgiveness and offenses. There's a passage of scripture written by what scholars believe to be the wisest political ruler in history and that's King Solomon of Israel . During his reign Israel had its most success as a nation economically, diplomatically, and spiritually. He wrote a series of proverbs. They are thought to be written around 900 B.C. These parables were written for men preparing to become top national leaders so they may be instructed in wisdom. Of all these proverbs, one of them stands out.  It says "Above all else, guard your heart, for it is a well spring of life" or in another version says, "for out of it springs the issues of life. This is the only time I can find that King Solomon said "above all else". When one of the wisest men to ever walk the planet says "above all else", it's time to listen. So what I get from this is above everything else in life protect and guard your heart. It makes sense that we should guard our hearts physically, emotionally and spiritually. Our heart is the core of our being and all of life's issues are determined by it's health. If our physical heart is sick our life will be in chaos. If our emotional heart is broken our life will be in turmoil. If our spiritual heart is numb then our life will bear an aching unfulfillment. Thankfully there are four thoughts that follow this scripture. Let's discuss the first one. "Put away perversity from your mouth; keep corrupt talk far from your lips. Let your eyes look straight ahead, fix your gaze directly before you. Make level paths for your feet and take only ways that are firm. Do not swerve to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil."  1. Speak life and not death a. Find the positive.  It's so easy to get caught up in the negative. The reality is we live in an imperfect world with imperfect people and we could focus on that, the news stations do. There's a ton of things wrong with people but there is also a ton of things pretty right about people too. Having done some travel in developing nations I have found that I can appreciate some of the simple things in life like running water, electricity, the kindness of strangers, and clean drinking water. If you live in the U.S. or own a car, house or TV you are richer than 99% of the people of the world. There is nothing redeemable or justifiable in complaining about the trivial. It's too easy to focus on what we don't have and to overlook what we do have or what's wrong with people than what's right with people. Speaking about the positive will remind yourself of all the good in the world and will allow for the negative to not be the focus. b. Speak life into your future and others. If you say such things as "I'm no good at writing." or "I'll never do anything that matters.", then you never will be good at writing and you never will do anything that matters.  Start speaking positively to the possibilities of the future. When you begin to speak to your future, you will begin to see things change. I just read a book called "Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide" by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl Duwunn. One of the stories was of a woman named Tererai from Zimbabwe. Tererai grew up in a small village where only the boys were allowed to be educated because of the limited resources and the thought that only boys could be breadwinners. Tererai's parents to allow her to go to school. They did for a while until they arranged for her to marry a man when she turned eleven.  The husband turned out to be abusive and forbade her to educate herself anymore. Her life intersected with an organization called Heifer International, an aid organization that is based out of Arkansas that provides cows, goats, chickens, or other animals to farmers in poor countries. The president of Heifer International, Jo Luck, talked to Tererai and told her "that things didn't have to be the way they were". She encouraged her to write down her goals. Tererai was a married mid twenties woman living in Zimbabwe without a formal education but she took a chance and wrote down what she wanted which was an education. She wrote that one day she would go to the U.S., earn her bachelor's degree, masters and eventually her PhD. That was a big goal. She wrote it down and as the years passed she would cross off the goals she achieved. She began with correspondence classes and eventually got into Oklahoma State University where she earned her degree while working nights to support herself. She would go back home to visit her children and family and cross off her goal. She received her Masters while living in Arkansas working for Heifer International. She returned back home to her family and crossed off her second goal. She is now in Michigan with her children earning her PhD.  No excuses: if Tererai can succeed in her goals then we all can. Write down your future and speak to it and with hard work and determination you too can cross off your goals as you see them come to pass.  c. Remove gossip and slander from your life. There was a wise philosopher who once said "if you can't say something nice about somebody, then don't say anything at all." Well maybe not a philosopher, it was actually Thumper's mother from the Disney movie "Bambi". There is such wisdom in that statement. When we speak negative things over people we are actually stealing: stealing reputations, friendships, and opportunities from people’s lives. The thought to justify such actions is: Well, they are a horrible person and they deserve it. Well, unless the person gossiping is perfect, which means they come from another planet, definitely not Earth, then they are just setting up the same situation to happen in their life because anyone can point out their faults just as easily. What goes around comes around or karma or reaping in sowing or whatever you want to call it, but the fact is you don't want someone stealing from your life through gossip and slander so don't do it to someone else. Go with the second highest commandment or the "Golden Rule" which is "Do unto other's as you would have done unto you" or the Malika Cox version is "Treat others as you would like to be treated, baby, because what you do WILL come back to you magnified, whether it be good or bad. " This is always the best policy. So speaking life and not death is the first step in guarding our heart spiritually.