Proverbs 4:23 Guard Your Heart

Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.PROVERBS 4:23 NIV

As a mother of girls, this verse I would tattoo on them if I could. It's in a girls nature to just want to be loved... guard your heart! Discipline it to see first the strength and maturity of the young man's own life before you give him yours.  But this verse goes even deeper than this top layer that I went to first.

The world works hard at teaching people to listen to their heart and follow it's dictates blindly, as though it were some great authority,and following it a virtue.  How many movies have you seen that follow this script?

Like a child, our hearts (the seat of our emotions) come into the world undisciplined and  always hungry.  Hungry for love, for acceptance, for respect, for belonging.

But somehow in our world we have it backward.  We believe that our hearts - our emotions are incourruptable, and it's everyone else who needs to change or understand or accomodate us.  So we go from one emotion to another always in search of validation to justify our decisions and  postitions.

Proverbs 29:17 Peaceful Children

Discipline your children, and they will give you peace; they will bring you the delights you desire.  Proverbs 29:17

There are companion verses that go with this, "Train up a child in the way he should go" is the most famous of them. My favorite is found in Proverbs 19:18 and says "Discipline your sons, for in this there is hope; do not be a willing party to their destruction."

The axiom here is that when we give children limits and boundaries, then hold them to it, they are just nicer people to be around.  They interrupt less, they are more careful of the space they occupy and the impact they are making on the people around them, they are generally quieter and less demanding.

I remember when my kids were small and they wanted my attention.  I'd trained them to come beside me and wait until they had my attention.  If I was in the middle of speaking to someone else, or they were speaking to me I would hold one finger up to tell them "One minute"  and then I would put my hand in their lap or take their hand so they knew I hadn't forgotten them.  They knew they were next for my attention and just quietly touching them helped them control their impatience.

Another trick I learned when they were fighting, was to put them on the couch and not let them up until they'd worked through the problem themselves, without making me the referee.  They had to talk through their frustration with each other, admit who was in the wrong, ask forgiveness, grant it, and then get up from the couch and play together again.  It put all the power in their hands to navigate the peace.  It especially helped the victim, as they couldn't get up until the one who was wronged was ready to forgive.  The one who'd behaved badly had to convince the one she'd hurt that she was sorry or they didn't get up from the time out.  It was exhausting when they were little, because I had to walk them through each step over and over, but now as teenagers and adults, they are still close and enjoy not only each other's company but I am consistently told by others how much they are respected.

The discipline that the bible is talking about is less about spankings and punishment and far more about giving them tools for mastering themselves.

A Question about Boundary stones

Do not move an ancient boundary stone set up by your ancestors.
PROVERBS 22:28 NIV

This is a verse I would like to study more.

Ancient boundaries... is this a word picture for the solid commandments that God gave to us? Is it a cultural reference for inherited land (as in what was promised through Abraham)? I just don't know and think I'd like to find out.

If anyone reading this has any comments or insights, I'd love to hear them.