Each year I am invited to bring greetings at gatherings of faithful servant leaders. And each year, the organizer gives me the same instruction: “Just share from your heart.” Those instructions always make me nervous because I know the truth about the heart.
Jesus informed His followers in Luke 6:45, “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.”
If my heart is full of hurt, pain, bitterness, complaining or worldliness, then the evidence of the presence of those things will come out of my mouth. If my heart, however, is filled with love, joy, peace, praise and gratitude, then that is what others will hear. The key is keeping the heart filled with the right things.
How can pastors, elders and ministry leaders make sure they are guarding the content of their heart? Here are five practices that may help.
1. Practice daily cleansing: Just as you wash a glass after you have taken a drink from it, your heart also needs cleansing. Cleanse your heart by confessing anything that shouldn’t be there. Are you judging others? Are you jealous of another’s success? Are you seeking revenge from a past grievance? Are you holding on to a perceived wrong done to you? Are you angry because your work was not noticed by others? Confess these things to the Lord and ask God to help you not dwell on them.
2. Practice daily input: In order to bring good treasure out of our heart, we must regularly deposit valuable resources into our heart. This happens as we spend time reading the Bible, listening to faithful preaching, reading good books, having iron-sharpening-iron conversations and more. Lately I have been listening to podcasts focused on spiritual disciplines for the Christian life and have found them very helpful. According to a recent Baptist Press headline, “Lifeway Research finds fewer than one in three churchgoers read the Bible daily.” A great place to start filling the heart is to spend time daily reading, meditating on or praying through the Bible.
3. Practice daily reflection: John Maxwell has reminded us that experience is not the best teacher – evaluated experience is. One way to evaluate your experience and clear your heart of unhelpful clutter is to have a time of reflection at the end of each day. Ask questions such as: “What did I do well? Was I short with anyone? Did I gossip? Am I harboring hard feelings? Did I allow sin to take root in my heart?”
4. Practice daily gratitude: Many of us struggle with a negative resting face. Our face looks like we have a lot on our mind, or in some cases like we are angry or concerned. At the same time a joy-filled heart shows up on our face. It is hard to frown when the fruit of the Spirit of joy is overflowing within us. One way to cultivate the fruit of joy is to practice daily gratitude. Consider beginning your daily time with the Lord by giving thanks for highlights from the past 24 hours. Try discovering three things each day you are thankful for and write them down. See if the discipline of gratitude begins to feel your heart with a greater sense of joy.
5. Practice a daily mind dump: “Metacognition” is a term that means to be aware of one’s own thoughts or to think about what one is thinking about. When we think about our thoughts, we will likely discover we have allowed unhealthy free-range thinking to go on in our head throughout the day. It can be a helpful practice to take a few moments at some point in the day to challenge our own thoughts. The old-time pastors used to ask at the end of a worship service, “Are all minds clear?” It’s not a bad idea to clear one’s mind throughout the day to protect from dwelling on matters that either need to be addressed or let go.
May the Lord help us guard our hearts in such a way that when others encounter the words of our mouths, they will be hearing from a leader who walks with God and offers the words of eternal life.
Dr. Todd Gray 