Guard your heart

Yes, I know it looks like the same topic covered in my last post ‘Set your heart’, but I promise you it’s not. There’s a big difference. Big difference! If the Lord didn’t show me this, I wouldn’t have really thought about it much myself. So please bear with me, sis. Bear with me! I believe God will help you see also.

In my last post I had shared how I was assailed by a litany of bad news over a very short period, right? Well, one of the things I didn’t mention was that I had received a text announcing the obituary of someone and thereafter inviting me to his funeral. The name rang no immediate bells and so I honestly didn’t give it much thought. I am constantly getting notifications of births, deaths, weddings, christenings and the like from complete strangers. I don’t understand it, but I have reasoned that many people simply use the ‘send to all’ messaging functions on their phones so as to be sure they don’t leave out notifying someone who might otherwise later be offended. The challenge though is that those random people whose numbers might have been stored after a chance or one-off meeting, or who the person might have had dealings with forever-ago, are then also recipients of these bulk sms notices. I’m used to this so I didn’t give it a second thought.

A few days later however, I suddenly remembered that I do have two friends – albeit business related, who have the same surname as was indicated in the message. Much as I couldn’t imagine anything would be amiss with any of them, I called one up. No, she hadn’t lost anyone. ‘Whew!’ I thought and then tried the other lady. She didn’t respond and I purposed to repeat my call the next day. In my busyness though, I completely forgot. A couple of days later, I was composing a message to broadcast via whatsapp and as I selected contacts, I came to her name. The first few words on her status made me stop cold. I couldn’t read it. I was too scared to think what the rest of it would be. I shut off my phone. Cowardly, I admit… but I wasn’t ready for what the reality might be. Not again… not in so short a time. No!

The next day I needed to drop my daughter off at her friend’s place. As I drove into the estate, I saw an obituary pasted by the gate. It took everything in me to drive up to a point where I could pull off the road safely. I wasn’t strong enough so I asked my daughter to please check my whatsapp contacts for her name, and then read her status to me in full. You can’t hide from reality, and clearly I was going to have to face this one. As my daughter read the message, hot tears poured down my face. Another first son… 27 years old…dead in his prime! How? Why? I don’t know how I made the drive home. But I did! God helping me, I did! When I spoke to her, it was all the more so confusing. The young man went to bed in perfect health. He was found gasping for breath the next morning… and no, he wasn’t asthmatic…. He never made it to the hospital. It made no sense! When my first son walked into my room to say welcome, it took everything in me not to hang on to him so tight as to make him wonder. I know he is sensitive like that! Also, I had determined not to fear! I was not going to fear.

If that wasn’t enough sis, just yesterday a sister of mine told me that the co-pilot of an helicopter that crashed into the lagoon a couple of days back, was the only son of a friend. She was beside herself! Another first son? This time an only son….26 years old? How does a mother deal with the death of any child? How does a mother deal with the death of an only daughter, or an only son?

Sis, what I said to my sister is what I believe God wants me to share with you today. In my last post, we talked about the Scripture that enjoins us “Set your heart to see with your eyes and hear with your ears all that I say to you….: Ezekiel 44 v 5 (AMP); but today my message to you is that you must not only set your heart, but you must also guard it. I will explain.

As I sat and cried in my car after hearing my daughter’s voice confirm what I really already knew, I was honest enough to myself to admit that fear was trying to lay a grip on my heart. I knew I had a choice to give in, or to rise up in faith. I made a deliberate choice to work my faith, to push back at my fear, and to trust that God has got my back...no matter what. I went into praise mode. I spent time in worship. I remembered something one of the ministers at ROTH 2015 conference had said. A widow herself, she was talking about how the enemy tries to come and use your grief to steal your focus on God, to twist your perspectives. She said God had said to her, ‘Be careful how you mourn. How you mourn would either draw people away from me or draw them towards me’. At one point she said, ‘Even if you lost a child, be careful how you mourn. Even the devil knows you don’t need that child to get into heaven’. Hard word, sis! Hard! But she is so right! Ultimately, even in our pain, we cannot allow ourselves get into the place where we sin against God with our mouths, with our hearts; where we abandon Him, abandon our faith. You see, the child that has gone will be with God in heaven…. And we who are left behind must guard our hearts in spite of the pain, so that we can stay anchored firmly in Christ and ensure we make it to heaven ourselves. Hmm! Hard truth! But truth nonetheless!

Sis, as I worshipped, the Holy Spirit reminded me of something. He reminded me that as I approached my 42^nd birthday some years back, something happened. My birth month is March. On the 2^nd of January that year, a friend died. She was the mother of my daughter’s best friend. It took the wind out of my sails. Between that date and a couple of weeks to my birthday, three other people I knew died. Each of them was 42 years old. And the enemy began to say to me that I would die on or before my birthday. And he didn’t make it threatening. Oh no! he was quite…almost compassionate sounding, and very persistent. he told me that I had had a good run anyway, that my children would never forget me, that I had put enough in them to make them successful in life, but it was time to go and go  I must, yada yada yada. It was a slow calculating chipping away at my heart. And it was almost working… but God!

Yes sis, ‘But God’ is the greatest of miracles, and the best of places…that of divine interventions. It resolves a multitude of things. But God… in His infinite love and mercy spoke and said to me very simply ‘You know my voice Audrey and the voice of another, you will not heed. You will not die until I choose to call you’. I began to laugh then. I laughed myself into worship, and then I worshiped my way into laughter. It was an awesome experience sis. I realized I had made the choice to stand on the faith in my heart, and not the ‘fate’ the enemy wanted my eyes to ‘see’. I counseled myself and I allowed the Holy Spirit minister to me. My life is in His hands. He alone knows my times and seasons and the number of my days. In this place, I set up guard around my heart, and I literally would talk to the enemy and laugh at him. I reminded the devil that several 42 year olds' across the world died every day and the fact that I happened to know four of them did not add up to me dying also. I boldly declared that I would only die when the Lord called me back to Him – just as the Lord assured me; and I said to myself that given that no man knows the day appointed to him to die, I would live my every day to the fullest and for the glory of God…not in fear. Certainly not in fear! And I won that battle sis, I did!

As the Holy Spirit brought this to my remembrance this time around, I set up guard again around my heart, and this is something we must do time and again, sis. I am convinced the power of the Holy Spirit that flowed in my heart made it too hot for the enemy to handle and he let go completely. After my sister shared with me that she’d been so frightened that she had immediately called her own son who is close in age to the co-pilot that just died, I shared this testimony with her. I counseled that we must guard our hearts so that the enemy does not set up camp and fear take root. Because you see, once fear takes root, we are paralyzed and we are easy prey. Once fear has taken root, it is really hard to set your heart to see or hear God, and in no time at all, even the word that is within you will gradually become of no effect as your faith fails completely.

So sis, today I simply want to tell you that beyond setting your heart on the things of God, you must guard that which you have attained, so that the enemy does not steal your peace and derail your destiny. Setting your heart on God is the ‘easier’ part of the journey. Guarding your heart requires you to be battle-ready… it requires serious contending against all the wiles and fiery darts the enemy will throw at you. Guarding your heart is you continually adopting a determined ‘the violent take it by force’ stance! It is a determination to stand firmly on the things you have set your heart on; to stand firmly on the word that backs those things with power; and most importantly to stand firmly …no matter what, in the God that is that Word and Power!

Do you see it sis? I pray the Lord will give you clarity in Jesus name. If there are many painful or negative occurrences around you that have been opening the door for fear to slowly tighten its demonic grip around your heart; I pray that something in what I have said here will minister life and freedom back to you sis. Trust that God has got your back. Trust Him sis! Trusting God is critical to guarding your heart. Give no room to the devil and he will flee from you. he will!  This is God’s word, and I am standing firmly on it because I have seen it to be true in my life.

Sis, I pray the Holy Spirit will help you as He has helped me. This life? We shall live it only for His glory sis! Only for His glory! Whatever God brings our way, whatever He allows to pass, He will also give us grace and strength to carry. Knowing this, we should rest in His omnipotence, sis. Fear never solved anything anyway. But keeping our eyes on Jesus, setting our hearts to see and hear Him alone, and then guarding our hearts with all diligence….this seems to me like what Heaven expects of us, sis. And this sounds to me like a truly restful and peaceful life. He is with us, even unto the end of the age. And He is the Mighty Warrior, the Lord of Hosts. He fights with us and for us sis, so we are not in this alone. As you purpose to continually guard your heart, remember also that He Who said He is a wall of fire around us, is also the glory in the midst of us. It is so well with you sis, even as it is so well with me.  

Be blessed sis…. For you surely are!