The Heart as Life's Fountain: Keeping Watch Over Your Inner Self

"Keep thy heart with all diligence" (Proverbs 4:23). The wisdom of Solomon stands in sharp contrast to our modern systems, which often direct men's attention everywhere but inward. A schoolboy may chart the continents and trace the planetary orbits, yet remain ignorant of his own nervous system—that marvellous work God has fashioned within him. Christianity uniquely turns man's attention to himself, as no other teacher, not even the philosophers, has accomplished.

Why does Scripture emphasize the heart above understanding, judgment, or memory? Three reasons emerge. First, pathologically, the heart is the fountain of life itself; the blood flows through it to sustain every part of the body. Stop the heart, and death follows. Second, the heart is the region of sensibility—where hope and fear, love and hate, joy and sorrow find their deepest residence. Third, and most crucially, the intellect is controlled by the heart far more than the heart by the intellect. Men follow their feelings, not merely their thoughts.

The keeping of the heart is not its destruction but its subordination. We are not to annihilate our appetites and passions, but to govern them according to God's will. Vigilance—unceasing watchfulness—is the price of everything good and great in earth or heaven. Nothing less than continuous discipline can keep the heart in harmony with God's own heart. For every great and base action of man first existed as a thought within; what we permit in the hidden citadel will eventually issue forth in conduct.