Journey through proverbs: What Defines You?
I once lived by the mantra, you can do whatever you want to me except play with my feelings. If you hurt my feelings then it was a big problem. I would find a way to make you feel what I felt. I would just be someone who I wouldn’t recognize today. I thought this was acceptable because everyone should know what hurts my feelings. This may have been your experience growing up too or even now.
Although it seems acceptable in our minds, I believe the Bible disagrees with this. While studying proverbs it states that mercy, kindness and truth should be qualities that define us. I always say I can only control how I react. At that time these qualities weren’t ones I possessed. I didn’t believe kindness was deserved by people who “hurt me”; definitely not mercy. I also didn’t want to be truthful about what I felt so I built up a wall so I could fight back. I now know the error of my ways. As a believer we work out of salvation with fear and trembling. This was once a part I had to walk out.
“Do not let mercy and kindness and truth leave you [instead let these qualities define you]; Bind them [securely] around your neck, Write them on the tablet of your heart.”
Proverbs 3:3 AMP
In Proverbs 3:3, not only should we let these define us we should also write them on the tablet on our hearts. Whew, that means we should actively operate in them no matter what comes. Let’s be honest, triggers happen and the only perfect person was Jesus. Therefore, we have to always be checking on this here heart of ours, continually. The heart is the seat of your emotions. It’s your mind, will and emotions. After we check our heart we have to allow God to do heart surgery. After surgery we go through rehab and try to use that heart again. In the box below I made a simple process to check your heart. This keeps you truly humble and able to love like Christ. At the end that’s the ultimate goal.
1. Ask God to search your heart and reveal if anything not like Him is there.
2. Pray for your specific strategy to combat what needs to go.
3. Ask to be filled with more of the fruits of the spirit and the opposite of the thing in your heart that has to go.
4. Ask God to highlight anything during your day to day life that is not like him to keep your heart postured.
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Nakeisa J.
Flow Connection Ministries 