The Heart Cannot but Speak and Act

To change your actions, change your thinking. To change your thinking, change your heart.

 

Personal growth books teaching the former statement appear in abundance and with a universal message at their core today. The problem is that by the time one is old enough to identify and articulate the growth areas of need, the habits and thinking as well set from childhood, with many development specialists believing that most of what and who we are is formed and set by age 7. So once someone hits 17 or 27 or 37, how can they change?

 

Proverbs 29 is rampant with warnings about the negative actions that proceed truly almost automatically from the sins of the heart. How difficult it is for someone to identify, when in the midst of a situation, under emotional pressure, the action that is going to be counterproductive to what they really want. Destruction, groaning, snares, anger, mocking, rage and scoff, more anger and downfalls, casting off of all restraints, dissension, fear, dishonesty and dislike. The list goes on.

 

How many times have we been told "you just didn't understand me. That's not what I meant. I don't know what I said/did that." While giving space for the honest error or the person who is truly trying to change, in most cases actions, especially under pressure, do reflect one's heart. Proverbs 4:23 expresses the source of the heart issue, "Above all else guard your heart; it is the wellspring of life." An indepth search through Proverbs will demonstrate how to do this – how the 6 pillars surround this center post of the heart. No easy answers but truly a lifetime pursuit. Seeking to become the person you were made by the Creator to be. While many of the results of wisdom can be bred into someone thru inheritance, thru teaching and attitudes in one's upbringing while young and moldable, in the end all have issues in the heart that must be recognize, identified, humbly and perhaps repeatedly turned back to God in order to become that person.