The Problem With Guarding Your Heart #SinglePeople
I never got it.
I mean all the Christian chicks were saying it and all the Christian guys hated it.
Mostly because we didn’t know what the hell it meant.
I remember I wanted to date this girl Stephanie SO bad.
(Name has been changed to protect the ease of the make out)
“Now Carlos, she wants to date you but make sure you guard her heart.”
I’d always reply with…”OF COURSE!” and then figure out how to make out by hour 4 of the first date.
#Guys
When I would attend the Campus Crusade For Christ meetings I would hear it ALL the time.
And I never knew of anyone who could accurately describe what this guarding actual looked like.
This was the closest thing I could find…
OMG.
Electric fences. Guard dogs. Snipers.
Yea. No.
I get it. Who wants to be crushed.
But I think that we are going about it the wrong way.
The time to guard your heart is BEFORE you get into a relationship.
Cause let me tell you, the books may say that he or she is gonna wait for the guard to take a vacation, but it’s probably not gonna happen.
In order to experience the truth of relational bliss you actually have to GIVE your heart.
Not guard it.
You have to open your chest wide, expose all the nerve endings inside of you, and be ready to either find the fullness of the satisfaction of true love or the burial of utter and total rejection.
And let me tell you, both of those make you truly alive as opposed to existing.
So open up your chest, past any aspect of self, close your eyes, sprint, feel the wind rushing past your heart, and when you finally find him or her…
You will curse me for the heartache before them…
But you will thank me for the truth of the fullness you have found.
And you will never find it with guard dogs and snipers.
You may find a safe existing love, but you really don’t want that.
Be Alive In Your Search.
Feel It All.
It’s better that way.
I’d love your thoughts…
Fire The Guard Dog.
Los
RAIN IT DOWN
I love this.. I have 2 teenage daughters that I want to read this!!
Thanks Carlos. I believe in that philosophy as well (open my heart wide once I’m in a relationship). Even if this post was geared towards girl more, I still want to share :p
My heart did break, ache, and tear up in pieces afterwards, but it was worth it. I found out about myself how much I can love and how God was pouring love through me. That was an awesome feeling and an awesome experience. Thanks for letting me know that I’m not weird for believing in this as well
I think there’s a lot of truth in this. While there is some aspect to guarding your heart in which you don’t just want to give it away to anyone who hits on you at the bar on Saturday night, you also have to allow your heart into a relationship that you want to pursue. Otherwise in many cases you’re left with someone that is so guarded that no one ever stands a chance of breaking through those barriers because they are forever afraid of getting hurt.
Great thoughts Los!
I think I tend to agree with you Jeremy, there has to be a balance. It took me some heartbreaks to know when to guard and when to let go.
Those old wounds only truly healed when I gave all of my fears, joys, and insecurities to the One who really knew how to take care of this fragile, beating, complex and sacred mess. Without those scars as reminders I don’t know that I could cherish the love and trust that I have with my wife as much as I do. Her commitment causes all the hurt in the past to shrink into obscurity.
I like what Craig Groeschel says, “you shouldn’t wait to get your heart muscle in shape”, “develop both a thick skin and a soft heart”.
I always thought “guarding your heart” was more like be careful about what you let in there influence-wise. Like if watching violent movies freaks you out, stop watching them. Don’t desensitize yourself. Be deliberate about the people you let in there, but do let people in, and let them influence your life.
I totally agree. Guards still let people in, but only after checking IDs and making sure they’re legit. It’s having enough wisdom and discernment in knowing who to let in.
Yea, I always looked at it like being careful as to who/what you let in your heart also.
Heck yes. I’ve been living this out for the last year and my relationships (both friendships and romantic) have been stronger, more purposeful, and I’ve learned so much more than years before. I’ve also become more confident and sure of who I am. It’s beautiful. And my heart knows who to trust and who to stay away from, because it’s practiced these things. Great post.
Better to love and lose than to never love at all. Thank you for that. It’s the only way I see we can open ourselves to find the one who is willing to love us back.
Great stuff man! Speaking some absolute truth!!!
PREACH, man of God!
Yes! I believe it is important to guard your heart way before taking a dive into a relationship. In that time spent doing that you become WISE enough ( through Gods wisdom ) to make the best decisions. It is important though to let your hear free a piece at a time. The Bible advises to not let love be awakened to soon. BUT you only know how to approach this through the time spent beforehand with God seeking Hos direction, etc. If that makes any sense.
Los! This hit home brother. Totally agree. It seems like when people hear “guard your heart” that they think it means to close it off to people, to taking chances.
I think we can open our hearts and guard them: Guard them by not letting just anybody get to that level of relationship, but to let those that we trust (even though hurt will come at some point) take a glimpse at us; raw, open, and vulnerable.
Thanks for opening your heart for us to read! Keep it up.
-A
Thank you for this.. I too am of the guard your heart before you start the relationship variety.. not everyone can have access, but once you are ready they can get access to all they need to.. I’ve not had luck in the dating world, but never from hiding my heart.. It hurts when things don’t work out, but it has always been for the best…
Fantastic! Why wouldn’t we want to pour ourselves into our relationships and experiences…the more we hold back the more regret and fear builds…love this. As for breaking down walls and barriers, as long as you are willing to live completely and fully those walls won’t imprison you away from the love you can have and accept from others. Only you can be the first one to tear those bricks down though, but I digress…truly great words Los!
ha! I always thought “guard your heart” in dating meant “don’t have sex”. There was definitely a heart-body disconnect in my youth-group education.
definitely agree. this mindset could have set me up for failure (and it did in other people’s eyes), but i’m lucky enough to have embraced and learned from my experiences (read: one night stands, failed relationships) and taught myself anew that there is a connection between heart & body (as elementary as it is) and that there is a better way to protect both.
Coming from a gave-it-all-got-burned-guarded-it-like-crazy-after stance, I can relate to wanting to guard your heart. Yet if I never gave my whole heart I wouldn’t be the person I am today. The guard dogs didn’t last long… I learned far too much from the first failure to let a little fear stand in the way. Faith includes faith in timing.
Gahhh noo…. Girls are SO good at throwing our feelings and hearts at people! Our hearts, our love, our affection, our time, our everything. We need to guard our hearts, it’s the wellspring of life. I’m not saying put it in a cage.. But at least protect it. And then you let the guy see parts of it, just little parts at a time. And if a guy respects one part, then he can have more. If not, we just give our all to a guy and then unless it happens to be the ONE time that it’s the RIGHT one, we get crushed.
this is so good, carlos.
at 34 and still single, a few things have become really real to me:
it only takes once. every time til that one time is going to end in a break-up, in some form or fashion.
and while i believe in boundaries, i believe in a heart fully alive. and i believe in giving everything i do all that i have.
anything less isn’t worth it at all.
in my twenties, though, to ‘guard my heart’ looked a lot different than it does now. i made others responsible for doing that for me and i thought ‘giving all that i have’ meant giving everything i have to everyone i dated.
my heart was a wreck then.
your insert is funny to me – last year, god showed me that i was in a fortress and we picked it apart, my therapist and i, but i realize now that this is exactly what it was – that jesus was guarding my heart for me. i don’t have to stay locked up. i don’t compromise myself, either. i can trust jesus to protect me.
in so doing, i can afford to live and love fully and completely.
because everything until the one will just be a break-up, anyway.
xo
two thumbs up to this, mary! thank you!!
i know God is mending my shattered heart. as “tough as nails” as I am in personality… i am a devout lover. i love til the end and then some. i love freely and givingly. i always get hurt. i had to learn that to feel pain is better than to feel nothing.
Thanks Los after a hell of a day dealing with church politics I read something so raw real and alive. Hell I can feel
Sir i love reading your stuff and i have lived and gotten my heart broken many times, but i learn and move on. Walls creates separation, openness creates intimacy. Loved this post man. Keep them coming.
Love this. Sincerely, coming from a relational past that loosely resembles a Shakespearean comedy, with a dash of Greek tragedy, I can safely say I would rather be here. My heart looks a bit like the Velveteen Rabbit. It’s worn in places & badly stitched up in others, but it’s still beating and believing and hoping and loving.
The ‘guard your heart’ Scripture has always meant (to me) that if the wellspring of life lives in it, it is most precious. The only life I know of in the Bible is Jesus. He’s the only good thing to come out of my heart. There are other places in the Bible that tell me without Him, my heart is wicked and decitful and I cannot fully know it. Therefore, I’ve always decided that I would do my best to be as honest with the people Jesus puts in my path as possible. I want to love them the way that HE is loving them through me. And if His example tells me anything, it’s to love them to the point of laying down my life. Personally, and I’m not trying to Jesus Juke here, I don’t see a whole lot of ‘heart guarding’ in that kind of love.
You are always told to guard your heart!!! If you are going to meet someone worth meeting you always have to let your guard down. Be cautious….I have been a fool opening my heart and being honest. I have trusted too easily. What if I put up a wall, close it off and I miss my moment!! Nothing great ever came without much pain and at some cost!!
Saw you at Elevation during revival one evening. You fit right in. Didn’t know if you were new or what….I see you travel…that is fun!!! Liven the life and praising the Lord.
Sometimes you just have to pretend you are dating someone hot. No break ups, no fights and no broken heart. Sad but entertaining. They might suck as a person but you can think otherwise.
Yeah…that’s what you do when everyone at your church is married at 22 and you’re 30.
I love this! What is life without taking a few risks!
This is awesome. As soon as you starting talking about hearing the “guard their hearts” phrase at Campus Life it made me think of a conversation I had with an RA and (at the time) friend about whether or not it is okay for a single guy (Me in this case) to be friends with single girls. My argument was that I knew it was possible at the time because I was always careful to establish that me and said girl were on the same page, and if one of us began to have feelings, it should be discussed. His argument was that being friends with girls is wrong, because as Christian men we are supposed to guard their hearts. When asked what it meant to guard a woman’s heart, his (summarized) response was that we shouldn’t lead them on or give them false hopes for something romantic to happen. That it really boied down to that we should never hang out by ourselves (me and said girl) because I could fall at any moment and have something romantic (or sexual) happen between us… it kills me that some people can’t control themselves to the point they think they must just shun friendships with females. Some of my best friends are females, and it’s actually pretty helpful when I do find a girl I want to date.
lots in this for me, on all sides of the equation… good post, friend.
Great article brother, I think guarding your heart not only applied to woman but also males although it’s thought of less in reference to guys. When I first started dating I fell ‘head over heels’ for a girl and never looked back. I threw my entire heart in the relationship early on and a year later we broke up and I was stuck in California, 3000 miles from my family and no one to go to. Well, the only people left for me was my pastor and God and boy did that help me not only to learn to rely on God but also to be more protective with your heart. Keep up the great reading brother.
Peter
The problem, if the soon to be PhD in metaphor studies can proffer an explanation, is that ‘guard your heart’ is an incomplete metaphor. Metaphors are supposed to have what we call ‘topics’ and ‘vehicles’. Like in ‘Juliet is the sun’ Juliet is the topic and sun is the vehicle. We understand Juliet in comparison to the sun. The problem with ‘guard your heart’ is that both of those metaphor vehicles (‘guard’ and ‘heart’) don’t have topics. There is nothing more concrete that you understand them in comparison to. It’s only one half of a metaphor and therefore, the ‘What do you mean by “guard your heart”?’ can’t really be answered.
geesh. I’m reading through my blog reader and commenting on all of your posts tonight.
THIS POST IS A FAVORITE!! Bigtime. As a 25 year old single woman, it resonates so much with where I am. I see so many women that are afraid to experience pain in relationships. As a result, they flee from any situation that has risk or potential heartache. They end up with no broken heart — but no opportunity to LIVE. I would rather live and experience the soaring highs as well as the crushing lows than to never live at all.
The problem with wall building is that once you have a solid foundation, it is real easy to build up any walls you may take down, and it will happen even quicker each time.
I think there is a lot to be said for friends before dating. My wife and I were friends before dating (this was intentional) and we found out that we could expose our hearts once we had feelings for each other. Thank you for sharing this and I hope this helps a lot of single folks out there.
Okay, I get the intent of the message and all, but I still don’t get it. Like as a guy, I tend to throw all I have at a crush on a girl while she is off in oblivion. I think I suck at this game really.
Proverbs 4:23