Hearts Are Gifts To Be Given Instead of Gifts To Be Guarded

“When you love someone, your heart gets attached to theirs. But if that love ends, and you try to tear your heart back off, bits and pieces will be left behind. So, you’re not really whole to love ever again because you’ve left pieces of your heart with someone else. So, make sure to guard your heart against premature love.”

What a romantic sentiment. Tragically close to someone so you can never truly be free. Eternal captivation and devotion.

Basically the Notebook. Noah and Allie could ever settle down or find new love apart from each other. Their hearts were so entwined that there was no peace anywhere else. Such love. Wow.

Paper hearts.

Far from romantic, this concept is in every way trapping and dehumanizing.

In this second post of the Assurance Series, I want to put forth that there are actually freedoms that overwhelm the dangers of giving our hearts away. And I want to reveal what those freedoms look like.

But first, let’s remember the caveats:

1. I'm assuming that your relationship or desired relationship is healthy. And by healthy I mean that manipulation is absent, emotional, physical, and mental abuse is absent, and you each honor each other as individuals with independent lives and goals. (Basically you aren't clueless as to what being a good human involves.)

2. I'm assuming that you're striving to honor God and not trying to find dating-life-hacks to justify sinful behavior.

3. I'm assuming you're dating a Christian or are hoping to.

4. I'm assuming that your dating relationship is past the "getting to know each other stage" and has some level of commitment to it.

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The concept of paper hearts is trapping because, if we make one “mistake” in attaching ourself to someone before we are married and it doesn’t work out, we can never be truly faithful and we can never be truly free from that “mistake.”

Before you know it you’re 35 and married with kids and you fall asleep thinking of your junior high fling…that’s not how it works.

Our paper hearts are too scattered for even Jesus Himself to mend. So don’t love anyone before you’re married…also not how it works.

There’s no room for redemption if our hearts are paper. We’ve trapped and defined ourselves as damaged and incapable before we even really know what love and faithfulness is.

This concept is also dehumanizing because it doesn’t honor the heart.

Hearts are resilient.

Hearts aren’t paper. Hearts are like diamonds. They can be cut by other diamonds but are just as beautiful after they’ve been cut.

Our fleshy diamonds are even more awesome and resilient than stones because they can heal and rebuild themselves and love again.

Anything that holds love has to be resilient because love is untamable.

And anything that can be beautiful after being cut and that can decide to love again is anything but flimsy paper.

When we see our hearts as too fragile to be touched, we can’t be courageous to touch anyone else with them. We guard them instead of gift them.

To use the imagery of the Hobbit, we are selfish dragons (ugly and lonely) guarding our treasure instead of spreading it far and wide to increase joy.

It’s much more accurate to see our hearts as blessed gifts instead of breakable paper.

So, drop your guard, don't guard your heart.

This elusive concept of guarding our hearts has been megaphoned into the Christian dating realm with only damaging effects.

Proverbs 4:23, "Above all else, guard your heart for it is the wellspring of life."

In Christian-dating culture, this verse is interpreted to mean, "Don't let your emotions become too strong for someone," or "Any romantic urges before marriage are sinful," or "If you love someone before your spouse, you are damaged goods and can't love them as fully."

None of those interpretations of Proverbs 4:23 are correct. Verses 24-27 clarify what guarding your heart entails and they say nothing about our human, romantic interests.

Proverbs 4:23 urges us to guard our hearts against having deceitful lips, a perverse mouth, a mind that wavers from the Lord, feet that pay no heed to God's leading, and any kind of evil. (Just read verses 23-27.)

The only place that this verse has in dating culture is a warning about falling in love with certain kinds of people.

Not warning against falling in love in general.

When we start believing that our hearts are resilient gifts meant to be given and shared…

We aren't afraid of letting a significant other fill up our thoughts and capture our emotions. We don’t despair when we fall asleep thinking of them instead of praying sometimes.

We aren't afraid of investing our whole self. We aren’t afraid of the hurt that could come with a breakup.

We aren’t afraid of disappointment because the person is more important. We don’t expect perfection because we’ve been given a beautiful gift of someone’s heart.

We aren't afraid to be known as both a victor and a failure and aren't afraid of their failures and victories. We joy in walking each mile with them.

We aren’t afraid of cuts.

When we are doing it right, we feel free to drop our guard and actually feel what it's like to fall in love.