Letters to Susan Part 8: Guard the fortress of your heart.

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Letters to Susan Part 8: Guard the fortress of your heart.

#rootofbitterness #letitgo

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

(NIV Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.)

Part of this post is my response to a devastated parent who emailed me asking how she could help her prodigal. (Note: Names have been changed to protect the privacy of the people involved.)

Dear Susan:

I’ve read your email several times since you first sent it, and my heart hurts for you every time I read it. It was a good reminder to me that I want to pass on to you. When you love a prodigal, you need to guard the fortress of your heart. Why? Because Proverbs 4:23 tells us that, “everything we do flows out of [our hearts].”

You already know some of the heartbreak of loving a prodigal. It was in every word on every line of your email. But you can take it to the bank that your heart is going to suffer more wounds before all this is over. That’s reason enough in and of itself to “set a guard on your heart.”

Guarding the fortress of our heart doesn’t mean we put up walls to shut people out. This isn’t the time to isolate and especially not the time to stop going to church. When I’m desperately looking for comfort, I often find it in the preaching of God’s word and in the fellowship of God’s people. However, it might mean we have to take a break from and not be around our prodigal or other negative people.

But I’m not really talking about guarding your heart from them either. What those of us who love a prodigal need most to guard against is that “root of bitterness” that springs up inside our hearts and “troubles us.” (Hebrews 12:15) That kind of bitterness starts out as a hurt that becomes resentment. Then, hidden deep in our hearts, it becomes a bitter root wrapped around the stone our hearts have become from harboring it.

I don’t understand why, but it seems harder to forgive people we love. We say we gave the offense to the Lord long ago, but did we really? Then why is it that every time we think about what they did, we get angry or hurt all over again? Real forgiveness, untainted by bitterness, doesn’t keep reminding us of the offense and breaking our hearts all over again.

Not only does God expect us to forgive from our hearts, but He also requires us to love others and to do both of these in the right way. We are to love and forgive others in a way that is kind and tenderhearted. (Ephesians 4:32) But 1 Corinthians 13 goes even further and says that love does not “keep a record of wrongs.” In other words, love doesn’t keep a list. Wait…we don’t keep a list like that, do we?

I was recently in tears about my prodigal. The offense was a betrayal, and I was devastated. Harry told me to let it go, and I responded, “But this is exactly what she did 25 years ago!” The minute those words were out of my mouth, I saw the problem...and it wasn’t my prodigal. How could I know so specifically what she had done 25 years ago? Why, I got the information from the list hidden way back in the corner of my heart…you know, the list that love and forgiveness tell us we’re not supposed to have.

There’s nothing that’s easy about the path you and I are walking right now, Susan. But we don’t have to make it harder on ourselves and create our own grief because we stubbornly hold on to resentment. Learning to let those resentments go is a process, and we won’t do it perfectly. But choosing to guard our hearts against them is the place to begin.

Challenge for Today: What might happen if we, just for today, chose to really let go of that hurt and resentment and set a guard on the fortress of our hearts?