"Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life." {Proverbs 4:23}
How many times have I heard this verse? I think the answer would be, “Too many times to count.” I know it has to do with more aspects of life than merely keeping yourself pure and not jumping into relationships with random people, but it seems to be the popular verse to quote at raging-hormone-driven, young, emotionally vulnerable/unstable, middle and high school girls who fall in and out of love every other day. And I must admit I have definitely been the quoting culprit in that type of situation a time or two. In all honesty, I’ve tended to hear this verse and write it off as not for me as much them (at least in the dating category) because, after all, I am far too well grounded and intellectual to spontaneously pursue any type of dating/marriage oriented relationship with somebody without knowing them very well beforehand. Spoiler alert! Here comes the personal life experience and application of experiences through which I am slowly learning.
Over the past month or two I have found myself in quite a few personal, emotionally charged, awkward, dating-related situations among my close friend group. In the cases of unwanted advances and unreturned feelings, most resulted in conversations with the person; some were handled by friends before I realized the situation, and then dealt with by me once I actually heard what had gone on. Others could be gently discouraged through subtle changes in my behavior toward the person. Also, I have been sorting out my own feelings toward someone due to expressed positive certainty, shifting to indecisiveness and mixed signals, shifting to negative certainty from said person. But, point being, situations like this have been coming to light and coming up more often as of late. This is rather intimidating and actually downright scary for me, a girl who has purposed to choose singleness for most of her high school and college years and never really felt any opposition to that single status or seen any reason to change it until about a year and a half ago. I mean, yes, I have gone on a fair number of dates, but never before had I really chosen or even wanted to pass into meaningful dating relationship territory.
These experiences and awkward situations have me thinking, “What if I have missed the point of this verse entirely?”
Here’s what I am thinking. Maybe, guarding my heart has more to do with my perceptions of what motivates both my own and others’ behavior. Do I see a kind action as a kind action, regardless of the gender of the one being kind? Or do I tend to see a kind action performed by a male as some sort of invitation to begin thinking about having more than friendly feelings? On the opposite end of the spectrum, do I ignore advances from the opposite gender when I don’t personally have feelings and write them off as simply that person being friendly? I feel like many times pondering these types of things results in more questions than answers, but one thing I have realized is this: actions don’t arise from nothing. So if my relationship decisions are not rising from clear, right patterns of thought, they will ultimately be skewed.
