Guard Your Heart
Genesis 48:1-49:33
Matthew 15:29-16:12
Psalm 20:1-9
Proverbs 4:20-27
Sometimes as I've been doing this project I find it frustrating that I leave reading the Bible and blogging till the end of the day. I leave it to the last of my energies...when I don't have much strength to focus and I don't have much motivation to truly reflect. I love it when I read and blog during the day, in the morning, when I'm full of energy and want for inspiration. When I read and blog changes every day...but most of the time it's right here, sitting on my bed, right before sleeping.
But I also really appreciate that this has become my new bedtime routine. I used to watch Netflix. I would watch on the TV or I would load it up on my laptop...I really don't like how much TV I watch. It's an addiction. I have on my iPhone funny names for app folders and one of them is called "addicted." It's just supposed to be a clever silly thing, but in it I have my Bible Gateway app, my Netflix app, and my shopping app. I hardly look at the shopping app but I'm fine admitting that doesn't belong in the "addicted" folder. But I hate to admit that really the only app I'm truly addicted to in the folder is the Netflix app. I wish I was more actually addicted to the Bible.
I don't like how much I watch TV. I don't like it because I use it as an escape and I should want to be present and I don't like it because it's feeding my heart and mind lies.
There are so many things I have heard to encourage me to stop embracing the lies on television...if you think this is a good analogy, like I do, know that I heard this from someone else....one being the story about how when a person needs to learn how to recognize counterfeit money what they do is they spend time with real money. They are given a stack of real bills and they have to leaf through it, study it, memorize it...how does it feel? what does it look like? And then when someone hands them a counterfeit bill they know right away: this isn't the real thing.
It's the same way with God's Word, with truth. We have to spend all our time with the REAL stuff and that's how we will recognize the lies.
When I spend hours and hours watching TV, I'm blurring the lines for myself. I need to spend time with the truth...not the media...because when real life situations come up where I need to respond I want to be drawing on the true things I know, not the messages I've heard on television.
I know I already have these habits...I know I've already made television references on this blog even, and I'm probably not going to stop, because sometimes it's relevant and also I don't think there's anything wrong with enjoying TV references. But I know I can reference television A LOT and I'd rather be referencing Scriptures more in my day-to-day life. I'd rather my mind remember God's Word throughout the day instead of lines from "the Office."
I want to be remembered as someone with their Bible open not someone sitting on the couch watching TV.
At this point in my life...I think I'd be remembered as someone sitting on the couch. But that's why I'm grateful that I've started this project because I'm not stopping! I know more than ever how much I need the Word of God everyday...and I'm hoping it's slowly becoming a new addiction.
This is all to say as Proverbs 4:23 says, "Guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it," I'm grateful for the ways reading the Bible every day is guarding my heart. I'm grateful to be integrating this discipline in my life...and I'm hopeful that it's becoming a heart discipline...something that becomes integral to who I am: obsessed, addicted, lover of God's Word.
Tomorrow:
Genesis 50:1-Exodus 2:10
Matthew 16:13-17:9
Psalm 21:1-13
Proverbs 5:1-6