Even as we’ve seen the need to protect our mind, it’s just as important to guard your heart. Keep trusting God and guard against unforgiveness, becoming bitter, and/or resentful. Ultimately guard from sinning against God and against others.
When we were growing up, my siblings and I would frequently hear our mother singing as she went about her daily tasks and from time to time, one of the songs would include those words in the chorus and it would say….
“leave it there, oh leave it there,
Take your burden to the Lord and leave it there,
If you will trust Him and never doubt,
He will surely bring you out.
Take your burden to the Lord and leave it there”
Excerpt from 'Leave It There' by Charles A. Tindley
When I heard her singing this particular song, even as a young child I sensed something was going on with her, and as I got older, I knew she was grappling with something big, troubling, and found encouragement in the words.
What we often do without realising it, is to take our burden to Him, wave it at Him so He sees it, I suppose, then take it away with us; we can repeat this activity again and again…. when what He asks us to do is to take it to, and leave it with Him, to ‘cast our cares on Him’. Leaving it there is an act of trust, it is saying that we are trusting Him with it, to deal with it. It doesn’t matter how big or small it is, He has promised to take them away and we can trust Him to do just that. If we are unable to let go of our problems in a constructive way, for me that means doing my part to resolve it and handing the rest over to God, they will accumulate and over time we begin to experience them like a physical burden. We develop a ‘heavy heart’, we feel ‘down’ or we may ‘lack energy’ and so on. No amount of medicine or talking therapy can fix that permanently though they may have their place in the process.
As Christians unforgiveness can be likened to a burden, a heaviness of heart. it can accommodate anger, bitterness and a host negative and unhealthy thoughts; it’s effects can be far reaching and extremely corrosive to the one who is unable to forgive, to take that particular burden to the Lord and leave it there.
Forgiveness is a major key in guarding your heart. Remember, the enemy is anyone or anything that tries to road wreck your relationship with God. Unforgiveness can harm us physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually; spiritually it is a barrier between us and God’s forgiveness. We are commanded to forgive, not based on a request to be forgiven, or on how we feel, the time of day or night or any other thing…. it is an act of obedience that will protects our heart.
