Heart reserve

There is a cost to every action on our part - nothing really is free.  There are many advertisements for "free" stuff in this world, but if you have ever clicked on one of those offers on the computer, you know you are prompted to enter your email, cell phone number, or some other identifier.  When you do so, you are inundated with SPAM or junk mail galore.  The cost of the "free" stuff is really just more mess to deal with!  Sometimes the cost is just not worth it, right?  There is a "cost" to every luxury, but not all cost is known up front.  If you buy a new car, complete with all the bells and whistles, you may think you are riding in style until the first time the electronic gizmo fails to work. When you take it into the shop for the repair, you might just get a little sticker shock over the cost of the repair!  Those bells and whistles are nice, but ridiculously expensive to maintain!  So it is with things in our relationships with each other, our supervisors, and even with God.  There is a cost associated with every action - reasonable or not.

A dry crust eaten in peace is better than steak every day along with argument and strife.  A wise slave will rule his master’s wicked sons and share their estate.  Silver and gold are purified by fire, but God purifies hearts.  The wicked enjoy fellowship with others who are wicked; liars enjoy liars.  Mocking the poor is mocking the God who made them.  He will punish those who rejoice at others’ misfortunes.  An old man’s grandchildren are his crowning glory.  A child’s glory is his father.  Truth from a rebel or lies from a king are both unexpected.  (Proverbs 17:1-7 TLB)

Cost is usually realized in what I am going to term "heart-expense".  The heart is our entire emotional make-up along with our entire intellectual faculties.  Now, we all know emotion and intellect don't always "mix" well. Sometimes they are like oil and vinegar - they just stay separated no matter how much you try to get them together!  Most of the time, we end up with a "blend" of too much of one and not enough of the other.  When emotions win out, the "heart-expense" may be costly because there comes unease, mistrust, disappointment, or the like.  There may be an immediate emotional "high", but be assured - what goes up, eventually comes down.  If we lean too much to the side of the intellect, we get so wrapped up in figuring out the right angle that we miss the salient point in the matter.  Either way is just a little too costly in relationship - whether it is with a significant other, supervisor, or God himself.  

God wants both our intellect and our emotions to be pure - to reflect his graces.  We aren't to be emotionally driven - spending our emotions on this and that, but not really having anything but disappointment or fleeting enjoyment to show for our expenditure.  God wants our emotions affected, but by his touch - not our pursuit of the magical thrill.  The fact is, we have a lot of way of "spending" our heart's precious reserve - either emotionally or intellectually.  Learning how we "spend" our heart's reserve is key to having balance in life.

Words and what we listen to can tells us a lot about our heart and how we are "spending" our resources:

- Spending our resources by listening to wicked talk is dangerous ground because we will find ourselves constantly pushing the limits or crossing the line in a moral sense.  We need to be aware of the things we are listening to because of how much they play on our emotional reserve.  If you have ever been caught up in a matter not your own, and really is not your business to be involved in, you will likely know how much this "costs" you emotionally.  You get carried away by the thing which really belongs to another.  In the end, you have invested a lot of emotion on something which never was yours to bear anyway.

- Paying attention to destructive words is also a huge "heart-expense" for us. If we read our passage carefully, we find liars enjoy the destructive words - maybe because they are intent on finding the next way to deceive themselves or others.  Deceit is destructive - there is a cost to our heart and our intellect. The malicious intent of these words makes them so costly.  They should be avoided at all cost.

- Engaging with the mocker puts you in a position of "spending" what you might just have needed in reserve to a future matter.  Mockers give out insults and in turn, they are insulting not only the one who is the object of their focus, but those who engage with them will be caught up in the insult, as well.  

- Words that reflect a rejoicing over some else's misfortune are also wrong. God looks for a sensitive and forgiving heart.  We need to guard against rejoicing over the misfortune of another - that rejoicing can cost us emotional heartache because what we give out will eventually return to us down the road.

In respect to the "heart-expense" we should not consider too costly, we might just consider the "cost" of disregarding another person's faults.  Yep, it costs us something from the "heart" - but it has tremendous yields for it preserves love.  Pointing out faults can separate even the closest of friends, because enough fault-finding will deplete the "heart-account".  We all have differences and we are well all served to "spend" our heart resources on accepting those differences, trusting God to handle what might need a little adjustment, and then using our "heart reserve" to preserve and build up another.  Just sayin!

Face value is seldom real value

Good guidance comes sometimes through the quietest voices.  If you have ever listened to the loudest voice, you might just have realized the loudest is not always the clearest!  It just got your attention!  As we have been studying our way through the Book of Proverbs over the past couple of days, we have discovered there is good advice which awaits those with hearing ears and a responsive heart - but it is not always the loudest voice we hear!  The instructions of a father's heart are of value to us in making us ready for what life sends our way.  We are reminded - follow them and you will live; learn from them, and you may not have to experience everything for yourself; love the, for wise words will guide us when times of trial come our way.  

Dear friend, take my advice; it will add years to your life.  I’m writing out clear directions to Wisdom Way, I’m drawing a map to Righteous Road.  I don’t want you ending up in blind alleys, or wasting time making wrong turns.  Hold tight to good advice; don’t relax your grip. Guard it well—your life is at stake!  Don’t take Wicked Bypass; don’t so much as set foot on that road.  Stay clear of it; give it a wide berth. Make a detour and be on your way. (Proverbs 4:10-15 MSG)

We have discovered getting wisdom is the most important thing we can do - for wisdom is not a thing, but a person - Jesus.  Coming into a personal relationship with him begins a journey of wisdom's development within.  Along with wisdom, we need to develop good judgment - learned and practical knowledge go hand in hand.  A life guided by wisdom keeps us from limping along or stumbling along the way.  One of the most prevalent warnings in the first four chapters of this Book are those which warn against keeping company with evil doers and the wicked.  The luring calls of those who would desire nothing more than to trip us up, pull us away from the stillness and peace of deep, intimate fellowship with Jesus are to be avoided at all cost.  

We avoid the places they hang out - because the surroundings we frequent soon become the "norm" by which we do our business.  Interestingly, the focus is not on the people in the surroundings as much as the influence the surroundings can place upon us.  There is a "place" of influence in all our lives; we just need to figure out where that is!  The way of the righteous - the place of their "influence" - is like the gleam of the first dawn.  Dawn does something dusk does not.  Dusk begins to "cover over" the things we find it so hard to avoid in darkness - things which cause us to stumble and fall.  Dawn actually begins to shed light on what once was hidden - dispelling the fear of the unknown.  

Our advice today is to guard good advice - guarding your heart against the dark places, the surroundings which will only entrap and trip us up.  Really, I think God may be telling us to guard our intellect - for all action begins with thought.  We begin this process of "guarding" by testing all teaching - not all teaching is worthy of our attention, nor our embracing.  Face value is often not the "real" value of something. I learned this when I had a Canadian Grandmother who would send a new two dollar Canadian bill to me each birthday.  I thought I was rich until someone told me the "value" of the bill was about sixty cents on the dollar!  

The face value of the bill made no difference - it was what was behind the bill - the backing of the Canadian banking system and government - all those things I don't really understand. If I had just gone on thinking I possessed two dollars, I might have been sorely disappointed when I counted on it to actually fulfill some payment down the road!  Too many times we count on something we had heard in our past, laid up in our hearts, to keep us safe later on.  Truth is - if we don't test it now, before we lay it up in our heart - we might just be disappointed in its ability to fulfill something we counted on to be there at a later time.  God's truth is of great value - but many distort truth with personal opinion, making it a little "grey" in areas.  We need to remember to test all truth - not just accept what we hear at face value.

Not only are we told to guard our intellect, but the heart encompasses our emotions, as well.  Two things which trip us up and get us into the wrong surroundings, listening to the wrong people, influenced by the wrong teachings quicker than anything else - not using our intellect, and responding to our emotions!  Emotions "sway" us - they are like those branches on the weeping willow - easily swayed by the lightest winds, gently brushing back and forth at first, but quickly whipped to and fro when the winds pick up speed.  Emotions have more power over our lives than we give them credit - they influence our "whereabouts" and our "think abouts" more than we'd like to admit.  Learning to place a guard over them is critical to avoiding the places we'd do well to avoid, the influences we'd do well to not be swayed by.

Two thoughts as we close today - we need to look straight ahead and we need to mark our a straight path.  Wisdom helps here - for keeping our gaze firmly fixed on the one who designed the path will ensure we don't lose sight of the goal.  Blinders on a horse serve a purpose - to direct the focus. Instead of being influenced by the things around him, he keeps his attention on the goal.  Maybe we need some intellectual and emotional blinders - helping us to think on the things which matter and then responding to those which will help us "stay the course", rather than being "swayed" by the course.  Just sayin!