Guard Your Heart

This week I completed my NLS.

Also known as NL, this abbreviation stands for National Lifesaving Society. It’s the course that certifies you to be a Lifeguard.

Honestly, the course was amazing. I never used to enjoy swimming lessons, but rescue training, that I could do all day. And I’m very glad to say that, all glory to God, I passed the exam!

I also learned a very important lesson throughout the course.

Protect yourself first.

Now hear me out – I’m not saying you should adopt a me-first attitude. I broke down the issues behind that in my post, Looking Out For #1. The reason I was told to do this as a Lifeguard is simple. If I can’t protect myself, how am I supposed to save anyone?

When performing a rescue, as selfish as it may sound, you actually need to look out for yourself first. But it isn’t selfish at all – it helps your victim. If I would go straight to them and try to help, they’d grab me and pull me under, and no one would benefit. I’d potentially end up losing my own life together with the victim’s.

That’s why you approach slowly, and from behind. You look out for yourself so you can look out for others.

This is something Jesus tells us to do as well.

Protect your heart.

Proverbs 4:23-27 (NIV) speaks powerful words on the topic of guarding your most important asset, your heart.

“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.”

Before anything else, we’re told to guard our hearts. No matter what happens, we have to keep it safe. Just like, no matter what happens, I have to keep myself safe during a rescue.

Keep yourself safe.

“But I want to help others. Who cares if something happens to me while I’m spreading Jesus’ message?”

I’ve wondered about the same thing. But the truth is, as much as Jesus wants you to serve Him wholeheartedly and make disciples, He also wants to make sure you don’t fall away. This is why scripture tells us to first guard our hearts – before anything else.

If you can’t help, who can?

If you fail to guard your heart against the temptations of life, bad things will happen. The same is true if I fail to guard myself during a rescue. Jesus tells us to first make sure we’re okay before going out to help others.

Otherwise, if you’re not in a fit state, you won’t be helping anybody. And that results in everybody crashing and burning. If you don’t protect your heart from the turbulence of life, you cannot help anyone.

The other side of this coin is realizing that you cannot solve everybody’s problems for them. I’ve made this mistake several times in my life. Please know this: it’s not on you to take on others’ burdens for them – that job belongs to God alone.

Sometimes the best thing you can do is know when to back away from a situation and leave it to God. As a Lifeguard, I have to realize that if there’s someone you can’t save, it’s not worth continuing to risk your life for them. You have to leave the duty of rescuing that person to a higher Power.

Guard your heart.

Above all else, guard your heart. We’ve seen the consequences of what happens when people fail to do this, and I’d hate for you to be one of them. Jesus isn’t telling us not to help people; He’s telling us to first make sure we’re in the right frame of mind before helping them.

If we want to do what Jesus asks us to do, we need to first protect ourselves from the dangers that will be thrown our way. The devil’s only goal in life is to make things hard for us, and he will succeed – unless we protect our hearts from him, and embrace Jesus instead.

How do we do this? There are lots of ways. We could choose not to watch that movie we know has questionable content, or we could kindly refrain from going to a specific party, or we could set up safeguards for our phones (for a start). And if there’s a relationship that’s dragging you down, you could (at least temporarily), walk away from it.

There are many ways we can protect our hearts from the devil’s temptations. We just have to do it.

Guard your heart above all else.