Debunking the Guard Your Heart Theory

It’s pretty much a given that if you’re a single Christian female, you’ve been told at least once to guard your heart. Throughout the entirety of my college career and most of my single life, that biblical command became the rudder that directed my relational ship… right into a cliff. 

Check it out.

Perpetually relationally awkward

Just in case you’re unfamiliar with the scripture reference here, I’m talking about Proverbs 4:23 

Above all else, guard your heart for it is the wellspring of life.

The teachings that mostly stem from this proverb basically encourage Christians to be careful of what we let in our hearts. Garbage in, garbage out, you know?  As it relates to single women, this scripture has been used to ensure that we keep guys at a distance (i.e. don’t get too close to the guy so that he doesn’t break your heart).

To that end, I had very few guy friends in my college days, and the few guy friends that I had, I held at arm’s length.  I wasn’t sure where the uncrossable boundary was, but I wasn’t about to let any guy even get past surface level, let alone into my heart.

To tell the truth, I had a very hard time relating to guys because I always assumed that guys and girls couldn’t be friends without feelings causing issues, so I actually would cut off relationships with guy friends if I felt we were getting too close (sometimes the guy didn’t actually have feelings for me, I was just that bad at telling the difference between genuine interest in me as a person and a crush).

When it came to being in relationships, I was even worse. Awkward is really the best way to describe the atmosphere in the room whenever I had to be alone with a boy. He was just a boyfriend after all, not my husband, so I wasn’t sure how much of my heart was okay to share and what would have constituted as me being “loose” with my heart. I actually remained a physical virgin until the day I got married, so I treated my heart in the same manner as my virginity… lock it up.

Most of my guy friends gradually faded out of my life (why would they stay when they could never get past surface level with me?), but I had one friend who persevered even though I had once accused him of having a crush on me and gave him the silent treatment for some time, when in reality he wasn’t even the slightest bit interested in me. He just understood the concept of phileo (brotherly love). We were talking about that particular incident one day when it dawned on me how many guy friends I had lost because I didn’t know how to be friends with guys for fear that my heart would get burned.

I had obviously  taken the “guard your heart” methodology too far, but then I came to find out later that what I had believed about that scripture all that time had actually been taken totally out of context.

Proverbs mostly consists of a series of short wisdom-packed statements of wisdom, so it’s normally hard to get context, but in this case we actually do have a bit to go off of. Prior to the verse on guarding our hearts, we see that Solomon is instructing his son to store his father’s words of wisdom within his heart.  Instead of warning his son not to let the wrong things in, in truth, he’s warning his son not to let the right things out.

Well dag.

Self-preservation is the worst policy

Sometimes I feel like single women live deep in protection mode, much to the detriment of ourselves and the ones that desire to be in relationship with us including friends, family, and significant others. But relationships are messy, relationships are painful, and the grating that we may feel in our heart is sometimes really just iron sharpening iron. The point is to not be afraid of the pain. The point is to allow yourself to engage in friendships with guys with the understanding that they are brothers in Christ who are capable of loving you and adding to your life in a way that is totally pleasing to God.

There is definitely a place for wisdom and discernment, of course, you don’t want to “throw your pearls before swine,” but if you’re a believer, the beautiful thing is that you have the Holy Spirit dwelling on the inside of you who will let you know if ever you’re getting into a place in your relationships with guys that is not beneficial to either of you. We often put so much pressure on ourselves to define the line and then come up with a list of 10 rules that will help us keep from ever coming close to it (imagine it took over three years for my husband to break through all of my rules), but I can guarantee that the Holy Spirit can do a better job of keeping you in check than any law ever could. As the apostle Paul said, if you live by the spirit, you simply will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

There is no fear in love and there is a phileo kind of love that Christ desires all believers to exhibit, so tap into the nature of the Spirit of love that resides in you and fear not.

S'ambrosia is a published author and singer-songwriter with a heart to see God's people experience deep levels of intimacy with Him. She currently lives in Kenya with her husband where they are beginning a ministry called The Joshua Blueprint, which aims to come alongside existing children's homes to teach children various expressions of worship. 
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