Keep Your Heart With All Diligence

To “keep” is to guard, preserve, be faithful to and maintain. It’s a responsibility to protect and care for. How can I keep my heart with diligence?

When I was a young child in rural Ohio, getting to school required a lengthy bus ride. Before sending me down our long driveway to catch the school bus, my mother would wrap my lunch money in a colorful handkerchief and send me out the door with a hug and these instructions: “Hold on to this and don’t lose it. Keep it in your hand until you can give it to your teacher.”

I was very diligent to clutch that handkerchief tightly until I could give it to my teacher. That protected commodity guaranteed lunch that day! 

At a tender young age, I received instruction from my caring and loving parent and gained an understanding of the responsibility needed to benefit, nourish and keep me healthy.

Practical Proverbs

In a recent conversation with a friend about the book of Proverbs, we had fun using alliterative words—such as practical, perfect, perusable, pursuable, paramount, persuasive, pertinent, piquant, plausible, pleasing, pleasurable, plucky, poetic, potent, powerful, pragmatic, prevalent, principled, proactive, profound, profuse, progressive, prolific, promising, prudential, pure and purposeful—to describe the proverbs. 

All of these alliterative “p” words could go before the word proverb to give more impetus to the statement.

Impetus for study

Lately, I’ve been meditating on what something looks, sounds and acts like. If I ask myself to define these three components, my understanding deepens.

From the first words in the book of Proverbs, we see activity. In teaching his son the manner of royal behavior protocols, Solomon stresses the urgency of action using the following words: know, perceive, receive, give, understand, hear, treasure, incline, apply, cry out, seek, search, find, do not forget, keep, bind, write, trust, lean not, acknowledge, honor, do not despise, fear, give attention, do not forsake, get, embrace, take firm hold, do not walk, avoid, turn away, put away, look straight ahead and ponder. 

And that’s just the first four chapters!

By the time we come to Proverbs 4:23, which tells us to “keep your heart with all diligence,” we’ve been immersed in clear instruction, leaving no doubt that there is something of value we need to establish, then keep, clutch, guard and protect.

We are responsible for taking and maintaining action.

Guiding principles to consider as you study Proverbs

As you study the individual proverbs, you might find it helpful to ask the questions I’ve been asking. Below are the questions—and some of the answers I came up with for Proverbs 4:23.

What does “keep your heart with all diligence” look like?

• It looks like protecting a treasure—money, valuable art or jewelry—to prevent the robbery of such valuable commodities. 
• It looks like building a habit of daily, purposeful Bible study. 
• It looks like repetitive self-assessment according to the Christlike standards found in Romans 12:1-21; Hebrews 5:14; and Colossians 3:1-25.
• It looks like my 6-year-old self clutching my lunch money, obeying the instructions of my loving parent. 

What does “keep your heart with all diligence”sound like?

• It sounds like asking for the “words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart [to] be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, my strength and my Redeemer” (Psalm 19:14). 
• It sounds like nonconfrontational conversations with family and friends.
• It sounds like responsible use of social media. 
• It sounds like not incessantly focusing on job frustrations, politics and self. 
• It sounds like evidence of striving to guard my mouth and tongue (Proverbs 21:23).

What does “keep your heart with all diligence” act like?

• It acts like it motivates and governs godly behavior. 
• It acts like obedience and submission to God. 

• It acts like peace and pleasantness. 
• It acts like it is useful, serviceable, edifying and encouraging to others. 
• It acts like it lights others’ lamps, enabling them to serve better. 
• It acts like it builds and fortifies a conscientious community through keeping, loving and practicing God’s commandments, diffusing His wisdom and promoting the excellence of His knowledge to others.

Pitfalls 

Straightforward enough then, isn’t it?

That is, until we weigh Jeremiah’s words, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). 

Oh, no! 

How do we “keep our hearts” if they are capable of deceiving us?

The answer lies in defining the problems of the heart that are identified in God’s Word.

• A hardened heart falls into calamity (Proverbs 28:14).
• A proud heart stirs up strife—it is an abomination to God because pride distances us from Him (Proverbs 28:25; 16:5, 18).
• The things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart and they defile a man (Matthew 15:18).
• Trusting in our heart exalts the self and makes us foolish (Proverbs 28:26; 30:32).

How do we make our hearts a place to keep God’s treasures? How do we “establish” our hearts, as Jesus’ half-brother instructed in James 5:8?

A clue comes from King David: “LORD, You have heard the desire of the humble; You will prepare their heart” (Psalm 10:17).  

Be purposefully involved in a two-way relationship with God

It’s symbiotic: God weighs and ponders our hearts and judges accordingly (Proverbs 21:2; 24:11-12).  

This is the “diligence” component.

• Incorporate habits that include daily study of the Proverbs. Consider using a Bible-reading program, writing out the Scripture Writing Challenge, and watching an FI Online class—these diligent actions show God where our hearts are. Choose one. Choose many. God’s words are the words of a loving Father, used with authority and affection. This is how He instructs us.
• Ask God for wisdom! Many proverbs encourage us to cry out for her!
• Each day practice prudence and humility in every way you can think of. Gradually, wisdom will give us understanding hearts that will keep us from errors (Proverbs 8:5).
• Practice the refined and difficult art of consciously keeping your tongue from sin. Doing so will protect us from trouble. 

The issues of life

Just as I trusted my mother to tuck lunch money into my hand, we can have confidence in God to instruct us in His way of life. We can delight in Him, communicate with Him and trust in Him.

What’s the result of diligently seeking those words of truth and then protecting them in guarded and maintained hearts? 

The rest of Proverbs 4:23 gives the answer: For out of it—out of that healthy heart, like a fountain of living water—spring the issues of life.

For more insights on the book of Proverbs, read “Cause and Effect in Proverbs” and “God’s Words of Wisdom for You.”