A Vessel Unto Honour

Guard your heart with all diligence, for out of it are all the issues of life…. scorn, contempt, bitterness… anger, envy… they all live in the heart… and it’s easy to deny that they are there.

The fact that those negative, pernicious states are present in our hearts may be obvious to everyone else, but it’s easy to ignore them when they are in our own heart. We don’t even think we are ignoring them. To us, they are simply not there.

The Problems

Oftentimes people know that we’re not supposed to hold those negative states within ourselves. When we know that we are supposed to let those things go, but we don’t actually know how to let them go in a real, complete way, sometimes we choose to focus on something else instead. This makes us think “Because I am not focusing on that bitterness, I am not bitter. I reject that bitterness. I don’t have bitterness anymore because I am not supposed to have bitterness, so I don’t have it anymore.”

A large part of the problem is a lack of understanding regarding how to get rid of bitterness or unforgiveness. Ignoring bitterness or rejecting unforgiveness is not enough to make them actually leave your heart.

This why the heart is the source of all the issues of life, because it houses emotional stuff. Emotional stuff is sticky and usually past-experience-based, so it’s not currently real but the impact of the past-emotional-experience is real in the-present-moments.

What Are These Issues in Our Hearts?

These issues are unprocessed, undealt with emotional responses to past-lived-out-experiences. The worst part is that most of the time, we think we have processed those experiences and have “dealt with that stuff.” But if we haven’t dealt with them in an effective manner that brings complete resolution and release, then the emotional baggage remains.

When we have blindness towards our own heart’s contents, then we can’t guard our hearts because we aren’t being personally accountable of what’s “in there.”

To know intellectually that we must forgive sometimes causes people to believe that if they simply deny their anger, wrath, bitterness, scorn or contempt, then that means that they’re not holding onto unforgiveness. People don’t understand that denying unforgiveness is just denial. It’s not actually forgiveness. It’s not actually resolution, so it doesn’t actually let anything go.

When a person only denies their unforgiveness, the unforgiveness has nowhere to go; it is trapped. As a result, it has no choice but to flow out when that person is reliving an emotional response to whatever unresolved-past-lived-experience they had. The flow out from their heart shows up to those around them as toxicity. Then, that person will still deny their bitterness and unforgiveness, while the people around that person are forced to cope with that bitterness that flows out towards them. The bitter person will feel justified to behave in this toxic manner because they were triggered, so their response felt reasonable to themselves. This has very seriously damaging impact. The Scriptures very explicitly warn us to prevent this from happening within family homes.

This is a real issue, a real problem and a real struggle with no clear, direct and plain resolution because it is an internal problem. A heart-problem. Everyone else can see it- but no one can do anything about it except for the person with the heart-problem.

Willful blindness is also a big part of the problem because if a person is willfully denying that they are holding onto unforgiveness, then there’s nothing anyone can do.

Be aware of this.

What Can You Do?

• One thing you can do about your own heart condition is: Ask God to do judgment on you and to try your heart.
• Ask Him to open your eyes so you can clearly see what is in your heart.
• He will show you through your triggers, through your life experience.
• Pay attention to your emotional responses and your words when they come out like daggers.
• Ask God to help you honestly and thoroughly examine your own heart so that you can know if you do have unforgiveness, scorn, anger, envy, or bitterness in there…
• Once you identify that you have whatever uncleanness in your heart, then you must process whatever the past-lived-out-experience is that is contributing to it being there, and that is keeping it stuck there.

You must find a way that will enable you to bring a final, internal-resolution to whatever past-lived-out-experience. This resolution will enable the negative-emotional-experience from your past to move out of your heart.

This is a life-practice, and it requires diligence to search your own heart and process the negative stuff. It’s natural for the heart to store old hurts that we dismiss, deny and ignore.

Everything that is in our heart comes out when we are stressed, feeling overwhelmed, or underappreciated.

What This Looks Like In Real Life

This is why we have to walk on eggshells around some people: We are trying to avoid triggering them because we don’t want that toxic dump that overflows from their heart.

A person with a bitter heart will dump their toxicity on anyone around and then blame the people that are triggering them instead of identifying their trigger and holding themselves accountable for having unresolved stuff in their heart that is making them toxic.

Understanding is indeed more precious than gold.

Final Instructions

Let other people be your mirror. If other people say, “You seem to have unforgiveness” or “bitterness”… believe them, and work on it.

Do not disregard that information, no matter how uncomfortable it makes you feel. They are helping you to purify yourself.

Thank them for bringing it to your attention instead of being offended.

Working with a therapist for a few sessions might be all you need to recognize your patterns and to help you understand what you are still holding onto that is flowing out when you’re not in control of yourself because of feeling triggered.

Once you understand, you can usually modify your behavior to walk in alignment with the Scriptures instructions.

If you find you still can’t walk according to Scripture instructions, you haven’t gotten the full story yet and your heart still needs more purifying. Keep digging. Keep cleaning.

The goal is Messiah. To be like Messiah in every way.

He told us to guard our hearts with all diligence, for out of it are all the issues of life. He wants us to have life, abundantly. He wants us to purify our hearts. He wants us to have clean, healthy family homes without toxicity between family members.

This is gravely important instruction.

Shalom.