“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” Proverbs 4:23

“OH NO!!!” I said as I looked out at this site in the backyard. Katie had planted some sunflowers from seed, and had just transferred them. This one plant was doing very well. She even carefully thought to protect the small plant from our prolific rabbit population. I had cut some wire mesh and set it, with the sharp points up, to keep the rabbits out.

Let this picture be like a tombstone of defeat. It was taken 1 day before I saw a rabbit chomping it to death! Crying out “OH NO!!!” stopped everything. With several other plants out there, and just as vulnerable, something had to be done INSTANTLY! With plants all around, I couldn’t understand how a rabbit would climb jaggy wire to eat what isn’t usual!

In a way it proves God. There hasn’t been a sunflower out there for a rabbit to eat in its lifetime. Yet it somehow knew that, what was behind wire cage #2, was good eatin’! While it doesn’t matter what I didn’t know… the sunflower is now a gonner. Death by vegetarian! Who’d a thunk? But at the expense of 1 flower, I have learned something about guarding.

Yesterday at JYC we spoke with middle school kids who are just like that sunflower. Sweet and mostly innocent, some were moving on to High School next year. Having been a kid myself, and teaching them for years, I have learned that once an innocent heart breaks or gets broken, it is very difficult to mend. That is why God gave us this verse to live by.Are YOU living and learning what dangers to look out for when it comes to your own heart? Do you take steps to protect yourself from what you know, and may NOT know, about unseen enemies? For the enemy of your soul doesn’t care about you. And YOU are his dinner plan. Please be careful out there and ‘Guard your Heart’ by doing God’s Word.