Keep Them within Your Heart

“My child, be attentive to my words;
    incline your ear to my sayings.
Do not let them escape from your sight;
    keep them within your heart.” – Proverbs 4:20-21

In Proverbs chapter 4, a father is passing on the advice that his father gave him, and one of the things he's concerned about is what his child’s heart is holding onto (4:4), what they’re keeping within their heart. (As a parent, this sure resonates with me! I worry all the time about what I’m teaching my girls to keep in their hearts, whether it’s habits, feelings, or priorities.) The speaker’s hope—like his father’s before him—is that his child’s heart will absorb and hold fast to words of wisdom, insight, and instruction. In other words, the kinds of words packed into every line in Proverbs.

There are a few proverbs that you may know by heart. “Pride goes before a fall” comes from Proverbs 16:18. “Spare the rod, spoil the child” (whatever you think about that) is based on Proverbs 13:24. For the most part, though, I imagine that most of the book’s wisdom hasn’t quite reached the heart-level yet for a lot of us.

What has? What sorts of things do you know by heart?

The Pledge of Allegiance. The alphabet. The Kit Kat bar song. The Lord’s Prayer.

How did these things get embedded so deeply in your heart and your memory? Sometimes rhythms and tunes play a role, but anything that you absorb on the heart-level also involves repetition. It takes regular, sustained exposure for something to take root down in the deepest parts of you.

Here’s what I want us to think about today: What things am I regularly exposing my heart to? What am I ‘keeping within my heart’ in my usual routines and pastimes?

Have you been filling up each day on the talking points that your favorite political pundits like to repeat?

Do you pack your free moments with a steady diet of sports news and clips?

Are you slowly, steadily memorizing every line from nine seasons of Seinfeld? (Not that there’s anything wrong with that!)

Are you intentionally spending time studying, absorbing, and holding on to words from scripture? Can you say, like the psalmist, “I have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you”? (119:11)

You can’t keep something in your heart if you never put it there. And, whether you like them or not, some of the things you keep giving your time and attention to will absolutely take up residence in your heart.

So be deliberate with your heart today. Give it what it needs. Fill it with the things that you hope will shape the person you’re becoming. And pay attention to the other things you may be stuffing it with—the things that won’t help you love God and love your neighbors, won’t cultivate the fruit of the Spirit in your life, and won’t make you look more like Jesus. What kind of change do you need to make?

Take note of how you spend your time. Consider what you regularly consume. Be deliberate with your heart today.

You can listen to this week's devotional right here: