Growing From Within

Why is it important to “guard your heart” ?

Because much of what we do comes not from the external but rather it grows from within us.

The heart is symbolic to our innermost core.

So, everything blooms from our core.

Rather than focusing on following a set of rules that live up to the life of an ideal believer…

I think another good way is to build awareness from within.

In order for us to “live in the Spirit”, there needs to be a rising above our flesh or the things we usually do.

It’s this rising above our flesh that lets us grow spiritually.

This is a difficult thing to do because we are going against our own fleshly habit or going against our own programming — it's an unnatural thing.

The Holy Spirit does indeed help us, guide us, and lead us to go in the right direction.

But we can also equip ourselves, and the simplest way is by building a certain level of awareness of ourselves.

It is with this awareness that we can start to progressively correct ourselves to align it to an ideal.

Building this awareness is a pivotal step to our own spiritual growth journey with our Lord Jesus Christ.

Let’s take a look at a few areas.

1. Temptations

We all have our temptations.

Whether that‘s lust, greed, gluttony, slothfulness or something else.

Much of these things we tend to do out of habit or on auto-pilot so bringing awareness can make us more mindful of these things.

It is with this awareness that can help us to identify it but also to progressively correct it.

The key word is “progressively” because in most cases it takes time.

2. Emotions

Emotions are another major component of building our own awareness to help us grow spiritually.

As believers, it may be nice to suggest we live in “love, joy, peace, hope and faith…” but we know that’s far from the truth.

It comes in cycles, and it's an up and down journey.

But the most important thing is being aware of the low cycles or negative emotions.

These are:

• resentment

• anger

• jealousy/envy

• depression

• fear

• and more

It is in these emotional states that we are most vulnerable to fall out of alignment or fall short.

So, being aware when we are in these states can be quite helpful for understanding, and helping us to develop ways to deal with it.

3. Thoughts

This is another very important component of self awareness.

It’s being aware of the thoughts or imagination that arise in our mind and the things that come into our mind.

Because these thoughts that come into our mind can become actions.

So, being aware of these thoughts can allow us to start shifting or aligning our thought patterns.

The biggest take away from all of this is building awareness of the things in these areas that we are prone to or weak in.

It is from this awareness that we start to better understand ourselves, and start to address things.

That may mean seeking professionals (counselors, therapists, psychologists etc) to come up with strategies or plans.

Again, this is a difficult thing to do because we are forced to rise beyond the desires of the flesh or go against it.

But it is by overcoming these difficult things that we can start to grow spiritually.