Keep and guard your heart with all vigilance and above all that you guard, for out of it flow the springs of life. Proverbs 4:23

Last winter out here on the farm, I was checking a bunch of mama cows who were calving (having their babies). Snow had come in and the temperature had dropped down into the low 20’s.

Though I didn’t grow up farming, I’ve learned in the past few years helping my wife’s family that a good mama cow tends to be more prone to calve when the temperature drops or during a full moon.

We found one of the mamas we’d been watching down in a canyon on full alert. That was a good sign she’d had her calf. We looked and looked and finally we found the baby deep in an embankment. Lord knows how long she had been there. We had to figure out how to get her without getting “got” by mama cow! My son and I finally got the momma cow to focus on him while I got the calf and laid her on the bed of the truck.

The baby was blind, we discovered, and impaired so much by the brutal temperatures that her natural instincts to nurse didn’t kick in. But regardless, the momma cow was going to guard that little bundle with a vengeance, if it killed her.

If I would have protected my heart with that kind of tenacity when I was younger, I wouldn’t have had the scars that I still carry as an adult. You may relate. Still, thank God for mercy and the sea of forgetfulness.

Therefore, today’s Proverb serves as a reminder. Out of the heart flows the “issues of our lives.” Lose the heart, lose the zeal. Lose the zeal, lose the joy. Lose the joy and it won’t be long until depression sets in and the reason for living grows dim.

Lord, today, let us not lose the fight. Our lives depend on it!