It’s Me, It’s Me O Lord

Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life. Proverbs 4:23

What is the tendency of the heart? Is it not to look around and blame others for one’s own situation? If she wasn’t so… If he would just… If they had only… and on and on it goes. However, if my relief is so contingent on the conformity of another to what I feel he or she should be or do, my hope is bleak at best; because, I can neither control nor change others. What if the perpetrator will never confess their responsibility in the matter, or moreover what if they are incapacitated or even dead? If once future hope is contingent on the confession of the perpetrator, there is no hope at all. What happened happen and it happen to you; nothing can make the past different.

This is why the psychology of the world is virtually useless; because, they want to lay the cause of one’s pain in the past and not in the present. Their diagnosis is present pain rooted in past events; rather than, present reaction to past pain causing present pain. At the risk of sounding a bit overly simplistic, “let it go is not far from the biblical prescription.” At the risk of sounding insensitive, “get over it!” Yet the former I say in the spirit of “God’s forgiveness” and the latter in the spirit of “God’s overcoming power.”

Rest assured, this is not a denial that the event happened. This is not a denial of the fact that you were wronged. This is not a denial of the hurt and pain as a result of the experience. This is not even justification or vindication of the perpetrator.

Yet, what if the problem is not the past? What if my problem is the present? What if the problem is not the perpetrator? What if the problem is much more personal? The power to control or change others does not reside with me; but what does reside with me is the power to control or changed me; the power to change the choices I make rest with me. YES! Now, my hope has been exponentially increased. And Solomon has well said, out of the heart flows the issues of a person’s life. It is not what was done, but how one deals with what was done to him that continues to pain, paralyze, and pursue him. Yes that person may have pained you, but make no mistake about it, you perpetuated the pain.

Let's face it! Whose fault is it that you were born in the family in which you were born or the environmental situation? Did not God know He was giving you to abusive parents or among perverted uncles? God knew and God did it; He allowed the situation to be in spite of His knowledge thereof. So one’s bitterness about the results of his or her life is a fight with God. It is hatred for who God made you and it flows out of one’s own irresponsibility toward God.

So the advice of the proverb writer is, “Keep thy heart with all diligence.” First, I will address the last word, “diligence”. This indicates the need for consistent and constant effort. Secondly, the word “keep” means to govern or control. The object of this need for constant control is the heart’s passion. The word passion means intense and increasing desire for “relief” or “accomplishment”. We have focused in this work more on the idea of relief, vindication or liberation.

Lastly, how? How does one keep his heart? First, one must stop looking around at others and look up to God. That is, count all situations as the Sovereign will of God. Note the scripture, “And the LORD said unto him, Who hath made man's mouth? or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? have not I the LORD?” (Exo 4:11). One will find permanent relief only in the proper response. And what then is the proper response? Again the scripture says, “In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you” (1Th 5:18). While others may indeed be a problem they are never my problem... my problem is always me!