Proverbs 4:23 exhorts us to watch over our own hearts with care because everything we do flows from that. As part of this watching over we need to guard what we give consideration, thought, and weight to.
Sometimes we don’t pause to recognize how we spend time in our thought life. But if we pay attention, we will notice patterns in what we give weight to. Why is that important? Because our thoughts and beliefs determine the choices we make and set our destiny. We assign importance to certain ideas and beliefs, attaching them value. The more we give weight to something, the more stable it becomes, the more deeply entrenched within. That works both ways – in building the good and honorable or the harmful and dishonorable.
So, pause and reflect a moment: What have you been giving weight to recently? What have you been you attaching importance and value to? What do you spend your time, thoughts, and attention on?
What we give weight to is what we are trusting as our reality. When we worry, we are giving weight to our problems. When we keep giving weight to something dark and unhealthy, we build a stronghold for the enemy such as insecurity, jealousy, or despair. When we give weight to the good and true we build strongholds of righteousness.
What are you choosing to put weight on, leaning into and believing? Negative expectations that seem so true and past wounds that want to determine your destiny? Or are you renewing your mind on what is true and good, meditating on the hopeful, life-giving things?
Some things that we can give our attention to, continually adding weight to them by emphasizing their significance:
--Joyful praise and gratitude,
--Believing prayer (casting your cares on him),
--Hopeful expectations for the future (banning regret),
--Learning contentment in every situation,
--Meditation on the word (developing greater and greater capacity for truth),
--Forgiveness,
--Confession,
--Blessing others,
--Presenting our bodies to God every day,
--Living in surrender,
--Holy habits such as small pockets throughout the day for a breather where we pray in the Spirit and invite the Holy Spirit to renew us.
God is encouraging us today to give weight to the good and holy, to build these habits within, so that we watch over our hearts well.
