Your Personal Firewall: Habits to Protect Your Heart

Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. (Prov 4:23)

Character is and will continue to be molded by your surroundings. If you don't take strategic control of your exposures, the storms and stresses of life will inhibit your full potential. You thus must be intentional about your exposures, so as you strengthen your mind, you increase your capacity to serve others and affect the world with positive change.

You are where you are in life because of the dominating thoughts you've allowed to occupy your mind. What you let into your heart shapes what you believe, expect, and do. Your circumstances do not guide your thought life. What you focus on is what controls your thought life. What you sow in thought eventually manifests itself in your circumstances.

What you allow into your mind is thus key to your attitude and subsequent experience. If you put junk in, you will get junk out. If you feed yourself your self-ideal and God's plans and blessings, you will experience those ideals and blessings. You thus want to protect your mind from limiting, joy suppressing beliefs. Don't take a reactive approach to what you are feeding your mind.

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - His good, pleasing, and perfect will (Rom 12:2).

Those who experience more joy don't necessarily have more to be joyful about; they just think differently. The following are healthy habits you can establish to help change your thoughts to joyful ones, thus increasing your potential for experiencing joy.

Habit 1: Feed Yourself Positive Mental Nutrition

This is deliberate, 4:8 certified inputs that come from what you read, watch, listen to consistently. Preplan your TV watching. Only watch, read, and listen to that which are positive, character-building inputs. Remember that you become what you think about most.

Habit 2: Start Your Day with Joy

Have an early morning joy ritual the first 15 minutes of the day. This time period sets the emotional tone for the whole day. Plan your first 15 minutes to focus on joy-producing thoughts and base it on joy-producing inputs. A good theme verse for this time period follows.

Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well (Matt 6:33).

To motivate yourself to spend time in quiet time, ask yourself "What could I possibly do with that time that would bring me any greater benefit?"

Habit 3: Seal the Day with Joy

Focus on joy right before you drift off to sleep. This lets your subconscious have something positive to chew on overnight while you sleep. This is the most influential time for your subconscious. What occupies the subconscious eventually comes into the conscious and it sets the stage for the first conscious thought the next day. You could spend this time asking and answering the 4:8 Questions, imagine your self-ideal, read the Bible or other inspirational sources, review the victories of the day, pray, or spend special time with your wife.

What Can You Do?

1. Realize that it is essential to guard your heart, which is possible by guarding what you allow to be exposed to mentally. What you let in your heart shapes what you believe, expect, and do.
2. Don't be reactive in what you allow into your mind. Instead, be proactive and focus on 4:8 Principle thinking.
3. Develop the positive habit of feeding yourself positive mental nutrition. Focus on God's will for you and your self-ideal as well as 4:8 thoughts and moderate your inputs to coincide with those principles.
4. Start your day with joy and joyful thoughts every day.
5. End your day with joy by focussing on joyful thoughts every day.

My Application

I need to apply these principles to my life. I have readily noticed that when I pay attention to what I let into my mind via music and television and actively pursue only positive inputs that build me up and do not promote ungodly principles and actions, I am at much more peace and am happier. There are days when I can sit in front of the TV while I do other things, and what is on definitely plays a role in what I think about and what things come to mind during my scattered quiet times. Since my character is molded by my surroundings, I need to control the surroundings in which I put myself. My application is to turn off the TV, to be cognizant of what I watch and listen to, and to make sure it at least does not dishonor God or his principles. I need to pay attention to how much time I spend with media instead of with God. I need to remember that what I allow to be sown into my thoughts eventually manifests itself in my circumstances.

Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously (2 Cor 9:6)

You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him (Matt 12:34-35).

Secondly, I need to constantly be feeding my mind and be conscious of what I'm feeding it. I need to realize that my joy doesn't depend on my circumstances, but rather on the good that I put in my mind. When a sponge is squeezed, what comes out is what it has previously absorbed. The same is true of my mind. When I get squeezed, what comes out? Hatred or love? Anger or joy? Prejudice or concern? Justice or empathy? Judgement or forgiveness? What is fed the mind is what comes out. I need to examine my attitude and circumstances and then look at what I've been feeding on to correct what comes out when I'm squeezed.

Third, I need to feed myself positive mental nutrition. I need to employ the 3 healthy habits detailed above. Although it will be difficult in the morning since I start the day running, I can improve in this area by proper time management. In the morning I can start my day with joy by spending my first 15 minutes in the Word and in prayer. I can listen to sermons and Christian music while exercising. I can pray while exercising. In the evenings, I just need to watch my inputs and spend that 15 minutes before bedtime appropriately. Although I may fall asleep while praying, I have noticed a profound difference in my attitude the next day when I read God's word and pray before going to sleep. 15 minutes is doable, and the benefit derived from that 15 minutes definitely offsets the 15 minute decrease in sleep.

Finally, there is something to be said for solitude. Jesus in multiple occasions went into solitude to pray and spend time with God. This is again a matter of time management, of paying attention to my inputs and what I am giving my time to as well as remaining aware of my priorities. This time to be with God regrounds you and your focus, re-establishes your priorities, and helps remind me that I am not of this world.

"What could I possibly do with my time that would bring me greater benefit?"

As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world (Jn 15:19).