Guard your heart

"Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life." Proverbs 4:23
Guard your heart from what? People? Things? Hurtful words? I think that sometimes in reading this verse we are tempted to shut people out of our hearts and our lives. I don't think that the Lord ever meant for us to shut people out. Christ didn't. He let people in, and He allowed them to grieve Him, and He allowed them to make Him angry, and to make Him happy. Yet He was without sin -- there was no evil in Him.
If you will, allow me to call it "trash control." There is such trash coming into lives through TV, movies, radio, and other people that it's a wonder that any of us are nice anymore, and it's no wonder that we are losing morality by the day. I don't mean this as a rant of legalism, for that gets us nowhere. The Bible says "You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him" (Matthew 12:34-35). Now while I recognize that any good in us is given from God alone (did not Jesus Himself say "Why do you call me good? No one is good except God Himself."), the evil in us comes from the moment that Eve made mankind sinners. Where does the evil come from? Look around you. There is evil waiting everywhere to snare us, bit by bit.
Guard your heart, then, from the evil around you. Guard it from the evil that is in you. God tells us that the heart is deceitful above all things (Jer. 17:9). Guard it from wrong thinking about God and who He is. God tells us through the apostle Paul to test all things, and to hold fast to what is good, and to avoid all kinds of evil (1 Thess. 5:21-22).
As for people, there is certainly no sure way to tell if they will hurt us or not. There is always risk. But Christ took the ultimate risk in coming down to the earth, even as a baby in a manger (that's a cow's feeding trough, folks!). Through His risk, we now have the beauty of salvation. With Him, we have a sure thing. He does not change -- Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb. 13:8). He is always good. Flood your hearts with His life.