When I was 20, I began an internship at a church for a group of pastors. One of the many quotes that would say all the time was, "Guard your heart for it is the well spring of life." It's a quote from Proverbs 4:23.

Maybe you are wiser than I, but I had no understanding of what they meant by that.

How does one guard your heart? What does that even mean?

I can't speak for anyone else but I can tell you how God showed me what was meant by this. It was a really long and painful lesson.

A couple years after I first heard the verse, I met a man and after several months of serving next to each other, worshiping with each other, and living life together (We did not live together and nothing we did together dishonored God) He moved suddenly and then I found out that he had sexual relations with 2 women that I had been mentoring.

We all know that after a breakup it can be brutally hard to get back up and live life again. Here is why "guard your heart" is so important... Out of our hearts flow our hopes, our fears, our will, our desire to wake up and live again.

I didn't even think to guard my heart from him. It didn't even occur to me to temper my investment of my heart into this person and it took years to begin to live again. It took God 10 years to take the emotions out of the thought of this person. In the meantime, that hit blew me right out of ministry, knocked me off my path in my walk with God. I never stopped choosing Jesus but I couldn't move forward and I sure didn't know what the path looked like.

About halfway through those 10 years God said something really profound to me at the time... This is why I tell you to guard your heart. Because every action and decision you face flows from the grief or peace you have in your heart.

Now I measure every relationship I consider based on the Mission, Strategy, Speed test, (more on that later). That's not to say I don't fan-girl. Oh I fan girl! But I spend a lot more time filtering people through the friend zone. Friend Zone is not supposed to be a permanent institution, it is a safe place to learn their character and guard my heart. The man God sends will earn the trust, freedom, and vulnerability that should have been his alone, and move past the friend zone.