VIEWPOINT MAGAZINE Volume 2.1 October 2013 | Page 17
Mind and Spirit
Above
All Else
A
wise man once said, “Above all else, guard
your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” At
first glance, this proverb is quite ambiguous. “Guard
my heart? My beating heart? Well, duh!” Obviously,
that was not the intent of Solomon, the wise man
mentioned earlier. Solomon was not the only one to
realize the importance of guarding the heart. I recently read an African proverb which, translated into
English, says this: “When the heart overflows, it
comes out of the mouth.”
This saying is one of the key principles in living out
godly lives. Protect your heart, be careful of the things you
expose yourself to, just like the old Psalty's Sunday school song
says: "Oh be careful little eyes what you see... Oh be careful
little ears what you hear...." I have personally found this to be
true. I have devoted my life to Christ for three years now, yet
not even this commitment prevented unclean words coming out
of my mouth. The reason was because I continued to have
unclean thoughts, whether intentional or not. An example
would be the time when I was reading a book entitled
“Matterhorn”. It was a book about the Vietnam War, written by a war veteran. Curse-words appeared every other sen-
By Paul Handali
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