Our hearts, like our attics, are also storage centers, full of amazing, astonishing, unexpected, and sometimes long-forgotten things. If we travel inside to investigate them, we can find precious memories, mementos we want to always keep. But we can also discover plain old junk - thoughts and feelings and memories that we've outgrown, or they've outgrown their usefulness, or they were never valuable in the first place. If there's a crawl space in our hearts where we've hidden our darkest, most painful memories, it could be full of dangerous mold. Every so often, we should clean and straighten up the storage centers of our hearts.
Because our hearts are the center of who we are, Jesus observes "A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of." (Luke 6:45.)
We are always, always selectively storing up memories in the storage centers of our hearts - memories of people, experiences, thoughts, feelings, touches, smells, tastes, possessions. Some are precious memories that evoke beautiful thanksgiving in us. Some memories, hidden in moldy crawl spaces, can be covered with anger, bitterness, a desire for revenge, or covetousness. Or even long-forgotten feelings of childish jealousy we thought we'd out-grown!
Is it any wonder that Proverbs 4:23 says "Above all else, guard your heart, for -" And here it gets interesting. Because different translations give different "fors".
"- for everything you do flows from your heart."
"- for your heart determines the course of your life."
"- for from your heart flows the springs of life."
"- for your heart is the source of life."
We guard our hearts by keeping watch on WHICH memories we're storing in there - and HOW we're storing them. Because we'll bring good or evil out from the fullness of our hearts.
Which memories do we store? And how? King David stored up memories of Bathsheba, someone else's wife, who was bathing on a roof. He mentally re-played the sight of her beauty obsessively, filling his heart with feelings of lust until at last he spoke to a guard and had her brought to him for adultery. He spoke to that guard from what his heart was full of - the evil of wanting someone who was not his.
We can store up memories of the ways a person hurts us and then brood over those injuries again and again until at last we open our mouths and ruin that person's reputation with gossip, lies, or scandalous truth-telling. Our mouth has spoken from what our heart is full of - the poison of resentment and the desire for revenge.
Are we storing up memories of a dead loved one? Of course! But are we storing up those precious words, embraces, and experiences while our hearts fill up with thanksgiving? Or are we remembering them obsessively while filling up with bitterness? Thanksgiving will open our hearts to more love in our lives. Bitterness will shut our hearts down so we won't love again because we don't want to be hurt again.
Jesus also tells us "Do not store up for yourselves treasure on earth, where moth and decay destroy, and thieves break in and steal. But store up treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor decay destroy, nor thieves break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be." (Matt. 6:19-21.)
Faith, hope, and love grow from our heart's store of memories so the joy of heaven can begin here. When we're tempted by hopeless depression, we can pull out of storage wonderful memories of the people and experiences who have filled our lives with love and laughter. If we doubt our faith, we can remember those times when we experienced God as being very close to us - a wedding day, a long walk with a friend, the birth of a child, the event that seemed like a miracle. When we feel unloved, we can remember how God remembered us recently - the stranger who graced us with a glowing smile at the Drive-Thru, the sunlight that has brightened our day, the robin that seemed to sing just for us, the breeze that cooled us as we sweated in our garden.
When we guard our hearts, searching them often to savor the sacred and deep-six the profane, we will be blessed and pure of heart. We'll be able to pray without reservation "Search me, oh God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts." (Psalm 139: 23-24.)